Under the Streetlights
by sapphtastic
Summary: Spoilers for Continuum. This is a "What? One year later?" fill-in piece. Sam battles an old enemy right here on Earth. Stars Alterna-Jack & Sam, a Goa'uld, and some surprise guest characters. Watch out for Ninjas!
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I don't own any recognizable characters, just 85+ Stargate DVDs. (Holy moly, just added them up in my head -- had no idea there were so many!)_

_AN: This is a fill-in piece for Continuum. So SPOILERS for Continuum within. Anything in the Stargate universe is game as far as spoilers go, though. There is no filter on the plethora of Stargate factoids that live within my brain! I don't want to do too much of a summary, because that would spoil some surprises. I can say that our main character is going to be Sam, that this takes place in the alternate timeline in which she was stranded for over a year, and that she really, really misses her Jack. Also, take a look at the genre: "Adventure." Yay. It starts out angsty but there are many chapters to come…_

_I want to thank everyone for the stellar reviews on my first two short fics. You guys are inspiring my writing more than you know! Thanks so very much. Since folks are asking, Jackson the Desk Cat is doing great, and has decided to man (cat?) his rightful post just to the left of my keyboard tonight. He survived mission Outrun That Other Cat Who Lives in the Skylight Reflection and is currently deep undercover on his newest mission, Steal as Much Leftover Christmas Candy as Possible (With Bonus Points for Gagging Loudly On Wrappers). Also, I'm beginning to think he must have been winning some high stakes games of Texas Hold'em at the shelter from which he was acquired because he appears to have ownership of way more than the nine lives he started with. And he puts on a stellar bluff. Just ask our dog._

_On with the show..._

--

Sam heard his voice. She stared out the window mutely, the streetlights fuzzy through the wet glass. It was just after midnight.

She strained to make out the words. Glasses clinking, the clatter of noise from the kitchen, it all conspired to keep her from overhearing _his _voice. She would know that voice anywhere.

She came to this restaurant often, mostly because it had good wine to go with the cheap food. She told herself that drinking alone here with dinner was better than drinking alone at home. It had been four long months for her, living solo in Seattle -- stranded in an alternate timeline full of strangers. The somber gray skies of the Pacific Northwest generally suited Sam's melancholy moods. The curtains of her town house remained closed, she took long jogs beneath dark, wet skies, and she stayed up all hours of the night until finally exhausted enough to fall into a dreamless sleep.

And now _he _was here. Sam rationalized to herself that choosing the restaurant had just been a mistake, a coincidence. She should have known it was too close to McChord Air Force Base. She told herself it was a simple error in judgment, when really, deep down, she had been hoping for just such an accident to happen. Her hand cradled the chilled glass on the table and trembled slightly. The wine was thick on her tongue, and her blood pounded in her veins. Sam closed her eyes and forgot herself for a while, just listening while he ordered his food.

He was here.

Sam would know Jack O'Neill's voice anywhere, though it had been months since she'd heard his last words.

'_Go to the gate.'_

He was close, just a few tables over. She didn't dare look, afraid the illusion would disperse if she acknowledged it physically. Little more than four months ago, two of her friends had literally evaporated in front of her very eyes, and her everything, Major General Jack O'Neill, had died on the floor at her feet. He had breathed his last, lying on the dusty stone floor at her feet, and Sam hadn't even said goodbye. She'd only been able to cry out desperately, '_Not without you.'_

And now Colonel Jack O'Neill, Special Forces, was here.

Sam knew he wanted nothing to do with her.

She closed her eyes, held her breath and listened. The relative silence behind her told Sam so much. She knew how Jack would be sitting, how he would be sipping at his beer straight from the bottle, and she heard the cavalier clink of the bottle cap being flicked playfully across the table. Sam knew how he would cut his steak, how he would mop up the juices with his steak fries. He would never ever finish the last few bites of the vegetable. He would sip his beer until it was nearly empty, take the last few gulps in one go, and grimace mildly as the bitter brew went down. In her own timeline, now would be the moment Jack would push his plate away, lean over and pull her to him with one arm around her shoulders. He would look her right in the eye and then casually kiss her senseless, the flavor of beer and steak mingling on Sam's tongue in a way that was so very Jack O'Neill. He'd kiss her in a way that said, _I've eaten dinner, but I'm still hungry for you. _

She heard his chair shift and knew he was getting up from his table. His booted steps receded into the distance, muffled on the dense carpeting. He would gather his coat from the hook on the wall, and he would go. Sam listened, waiting for the sound of bell on the front door to signal his departure.

And then he was _there_, right beside her.

"Hey…" It was a question, not a statement, and it was addressed to her.

Sam opened her eyes to see Colonel O'Neill standing at her table, one elbow leaning carelessly on the back of an empty chair. She met his gaze with hers, and just nodded minutely. Jack's head cocked to the side, and Sam's facade nearly crumbled while she endured the scrutiny of the inquiring look Jack reserved for strangers. The aloof posture, the guarded gaze. A hundred questions gathered behind his eyes. She watched as he carefully dismissed them, one after another, before he finally settled for just one.

"How are you?" Jack's gaze was even and discerning.

Sam didn't have an answer for him. How was she? She was adrift. Friendless and empty. Helpless to do anything with her new life, left waiting for a galactic attack that might not even happen in her own lifetime. Sam was missing everything that had made her life hers.

She was alone.

Staring into Jack's wary eyes, memories assailed Samantha. She knew how he would smell when she buried her face in his neck. How she would feel rather than hear the rumble of his low voice as he murmured sweet words while gathering her in his strong arms. The feel of his hair between her fingers and beneath her palms as she caressed it while kissing Jack passionately. The way his naked skin felt against hers. How their bodies fit together so very perfectly, intertwined, his breath heavy and hot in her ear.

Sam felt unequivocally lost and raised one hand in a gesture of defeat. She answered Jack's question honestly. "I don't know." Her voice was quiet but collected.

Sam watched as Jack absorbed her non-answer, his eyes intensely studying her own. She didn't move, silently begging him to just walk away. He must have seen something he understood in her gaze because Jack complied with the unspoken request.

He swallowed once and spoke just one word before taking his leave of Samantha. "Sorry." He reached out one hand as if to set it on top of hers, but stopped halfway as his eyes halted somewhere beyond Sam's shoulder. His hand paused in mid-air, and Jack tapped the tabletop twice distractedly, pulling his hand back and confining it within his pocket to match its twin before resuming the walk back to his own table.

Sam's eyes were open, but she could no longer see with clarity through the haze of tears rushing to her eyes. Sorry? He was sorry? Sorry for what, for dying? For not knowing her? For existing?

"...your coat..." he was saying to someone at his table. "Paid the check ... let's go." The sound of a second chair scooting back from the table assaulted Sam.

The tears in her eyes traitorously cleared just in time for Sam to watch Jack walk by the table once more, accompanied this time by a lovely and delicate special someone. Jealousy tore through Sam, unbidden and unwelcome, as she was reminded of the existence of Jack's wife, Sara.

Time slowed down as Sam watched him lead the woman from the restaurant, his hand guiding protectively at the small of the leggy blonde's back. He held the door open for his companion as they left -- of course he did -- and he turned toward Samantha once more. Sam's stricken eyes met his for one final surprising moment.

There was a question in his eyes.

A million words swept through Sam's mind, but she settled for expressing the only three that would do.

_Please, just go._

Jack tore his eyes away, took three more steps, and was lost to the darkness. The door chimed closed behind him and Sam's world crumbled.

He was really _gone. _Major General Jack O'Neill had died in the dirt at her feet, and Colonel Jack O'Neill had just walked out the door. And all she could do to fix it was _wait. _Wait for an attack that may never come, a repair to a timeline that would never be, a life that could never return.

A touch at Sam's elbow startled her from her reverie.

The waitress gave Samantha a hesitant smile, and handed over the check. "Whenever you're ready," she quietly informed Sam and gestured to the cashier's counter near the front. "I'll be waiting."

Waiting.

Sam was done waiting. She might not have access to the Stargate, she might not have any friends, she may have lost her better half, but Sam was done waiting. There were things she needed to do to prepare for Ba'al's attack, but first, she had to see Jack one more time. She just had to see him.

Sam pressed a twenty dollar bill into the hand of the startled waitress, gathered her things, and darted out the door.

She just had to see him.

--

TBC.

--

_Reviews please! They are like candy. I love them. They make my day more lovely. They also give me something to savor while agonizing over how to write particularly difficult passages. They remind me to keep writing.  
_

_What would you do if you were Sam, and you were stranded in an alternate timeline with little hope of returning things to normal? I'm going against my best instincts here by posting this before it is entirely finished, and while I do have the first three chapters done along with a basic outline for an adventurous plot (and a dramatic conclusion!), I'd love to hear your ideas of what should happen along the way._

_I _can _tell you that characters we haven't seen since season ... three will eventually make an appearance._ :)


	2. Chapter 2

_Same disclaimer: I don't own them. Same spoiler warning: Nothing is sacred, read at your own risk of being spoiled for anything and everything Stargate._

_Thanks so much for reviewing, you guys. I'm glad folks are reading. The first chapter was a hard one for me to feel satisfied with. Sad and teary Sam is a hard character to write because she is normally such a stoic and strong character. I feel like she must be the kind of person who only really truly cries when she's alone in the dark…_

_And NO, I am not bringing Laira back as one of the characters from season three. I *do* have a LairaFic somewhere on my hard drive, but it quickly devolved into something where her bloated body was found in a tree after a massive flood destroyed Edora… and things just went downhill from there. _

_No, Urgo and Jack will not be raising gaybies, either. As charming as that story idea sounds._

_All aboard and on with the story…_

--

Jack stood silently at the door; his hand was raised, but he found himself unable to knock. He shouldn't be here. Sure, he accidentally ran into the dead astronaut at the restaurant, but he shouldn't have even acted like he recognized her, let alone tried to have a conversation with the woman. She had done the right thing by refusing to speak with him. Heck, she had even been trying not to _look _at him. He had been so genuinely surprised to see the astronaut Carter's doppelganger here in Seattle that he'd spoken without thinking of the repercussions.

He'd known the three individuals he'd pulled from the arctic had initially been asking for him, but he had honestly wanted nothing to do with whatever crazy crap they were involved in. Alternate timelines. What a pain the proverbial ass.

Jack lowered his arm and let out a puff of air in frustration.

He had been haunted by the look in that woman's – Samantha's – eyes yesterday. The recognition in her gaze had shaken him to the core. He knew she'd had so much to say to him, but that she had been holding back for his sake. The tension had been ridiculously palpable.

From the darkness of his rental car, he had watched as Samantha had hurried out of the restaurant, just moments behind him and his companion. He had watched cautiously as her eyes had scanned the parking lot. Not finding Jack, she'd silently fallen apart against the wall of the restaurant.

Karen, Jack's date, had been observing the two of them carefully from the passenger seat of Jack's car.

She had looked between his white knuckles on the steering wheel and Samantha's tear streaked cheeks out there in the darkness and assumed the obvious, that Samantha was an ex-girlfriend. Jack hadn't corrected her; he'd simply driven his date home in awkward silence. She had promised to call and they both knew she probably wouldn't. Karen had sensed as well as he had that there was an intense history of some sort between Jack and the not-astronaut. She would most likely run away from that kind of undeniable baggage -- the same way most women reacted when they found out about his divorce from Sara.

In that dark parking lot, Samantha had quickly impressed Jack with the way she could swallow her visible despair by replacing it with resolve before marching away with her head held high, despite the late hour and the fact she was alone. He'd had an unarguable urge to protect her, despite her obvious personal strength.

Samantha Carter's striking tenacity was the very reason Jack had made a few discreet phone calls the next morning, finding out just what Sam's new identity was, and where she was living, here near Seattle. And why he found himself outside her door fewer than twenty-four hours later, unable to bring himself to knock.

Jack turned away from the door, and went to sit on the top step of Samantha's porch in the waning late-afternoon light. Propping his forehead on outstretched fingertips to block out distractions, Jack decided to contemplate just what it was he was doing.

Mere moments later, Samantha's startled, "Sir!" broke him from his reverie.

--

Samantha Carter stood on her porch, wallet and keys in hand, but errands forgotten. She had been rendered relatively speechless at Colonel O'Neill's surprise arrival. Never in a million years could Sam have predicted his appearance at her front door. Her identity and address were supposed to be a secret. No longer a member of the Air Force, not even an American citizen -- she was officially a non-person now. And Jack O'Neill was sitting on her front porch.

"Jack, I mean. Not sir." Sam finally corrected herself after a moment's uncomfortable silence. Jack was still staring. "Or would you prefer Colonel? You're a colonel now, right?" Sam divested herself of the wallet and stood fidgeting with her keys.

Jack waved away Sam's military concern over terms of address. "Full bird. Have been for a while, now. But Jack's fine." His voice was quiet and subdued. At Jack's response Sam found herself stepping closer in order to hear him clearly. He remained seated, but turned to lean back against the newel post, and folded his hands in his lap to still them. He was studying her.

Sam took the opportunity to consider him, as well. This Jack looked lean and more relaxed than her Jack. She could tell the combination of having a living son and a job that didn't involve flying a desk were good for him.

"How did you--" she started to ask.

"Made a few phone calls," came the quick reply. "It helps to have friends in the right places." He paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. "Should I call you--"

"No," Sam cut him off. "Sam. Or Samantha is fine." It was hard enough to have Jack inspecting her like she was a stranger. She didn't know if she could handle him calling her by the name assigned to her when she was given her new life in the altered timeline.

"Samantha." He nodded casually. "Sam."

Sam allowed herself a moment to reflect on the differences between this and her original timeline and smiled in spite of her nervousness. "You don't outrank me anymore."

At Jack's skeptical look, she continued. "Sorry. That's just the first thing that came to mind. You -- he outranked me for as long as I knew ... him. The other you. He called me 'Carter' most of the time." Sam sighed and sat down on the top step with Jack. She felt the inexplicable need to apologize again. "Sorry. This is just weird for me." She turned to Jack and smiled a little sheepishly.

Jack met her gaze evenly, seriously. "You're telling me. I'm having a conversation with a dead astronaut." He pulled his eyes from her for the first time in two minutes, and looked out over the suburban street. "Or a non-existent colonel." Jack's hands waved feebly in front of him and he sighed audibly. "So," Jack said. "A colonel, eh?"

"Full bird. Have been for a while now," she parroted. Sam watched grin spread across Jack's face at her facetiousness.

Jack laughed lightly. "Nice job. I mean, how old are you? Twenty?"

Sam scoffed at Jack's remark, though she felt a smidgen of flattery. "Hardly." She glanced down at the wooden step and picked at the wood grain with her fingernail.

"Still," he continued. "I've never met a colonel as…" Jack gestured with his hands while obviously searching for the right adjective, before finishing a little awkwardly, "... hot ... as you."

Sam laughed aloud, and Jack slyly met her eye from the corner of his in a way that was so very Jack O'Neill. Sam fought down the wave of sadness she felt at that and instead teased him lightly back. "The military never changes, no matter what timeline you're in. You're all chauvinist pigs." She took the sting out of her comment by pairing it with a real grin.

Jack shared a chuckle with Sam and nodded his agreement with her sentiment.

Sam found herself becoming strangely comfortable here on the steps with Jack -- teasing Jack and being teased right back by him like old times made her feel more normal than she'd felt since arriving in this timeline. Sam relaxed, as did the Colonel. The tension relieved, she began to chat amicably with Jack, sharing bits and pieces of her previous existence.

Jack asked very few questions about his counterpart, except once to question, "I'm a General there?"

"Major General," Sam announced proudly. At his disbelief, Sam explained with a shrug. "You save the world a few times, you tend to get promoted." They had all been on a fast track at the SCG, she fondly recalled. Captain to full-bird colonel in under ten years would be an astonishing feat, especially for a woman, were it not for her front-line combat position and all of the specialized extra training.

Sam was ill at ease doing all of the talking, and so she asked Jack about Charlie. Jack was happy to oblige her with stories from his son's childhood and some of his newest escapades while away at college. Sam leaned back and reveled in the forgotten simple pleasure of listening to Jack's voice -- though she felt some sorrow as he recounted many of the little events her Jack had tragically been unable to experience after the loss of his son.

Jack sounded a little wistful as he continued. "He thought about going to The Academy, but Sara talked him out of it."

"Your wife."

"Ex."

Jack's eyes widened and Sam realized her disbelief must have shown on her face.

"What, we were still married there?" he asked, his voice rising in timbre.

Sam quickly shook her head in the negative, and clarified her assumption. "I just thought if there was anywhere you'd still be married to her, it would be here." Sam had long assumed the loss of their child had been a tragic wedge that had driven Sara and Jack apart.

Jack stared off into space for a while before answering. "I'm not around much." It was a simple explanation, but as the daughter of an Air Force officer, Sam understood all too well. She nodded silently.

Sam thought back to the previous night, and voiced a question. "So last night -- that wasn't Sara you were with?" She awaited the answer with some trepidation, afraid to meet Jack's eyes directly -- not sure if any answer would be one to please her. In Sam's reality, she and Jack had been together for the better part of four years. It was hard for her to imagine this Jack with someone else.

Jack shook his head slowly. "Nope. Not Sara. Karen. Third date." A wrinkle appeared between Jack's brows. He looked a little discomfited. "Although, yeah, now that you mention it, there may be a resemblance." Jack winced at the realization and Sam allowed a small giggle at that.

She wasn't sure why, but she was glad Jack's involvement with the blond wasn't anything serious. She knew she had no hold over the man, but Sam definitely found herself wanting the opportunity to get to know this Jack ... the very different Jack occupying this new timeline. This Jack had spent a decade longer in Special Forces and had also spent more time living with his son, a son who was rapidly becoming a man. This Jack was measurably more relaxed, but also seemed to be less irreverent.

Samantha and Jack sat and talked on her porch long into the evening, until a light rain began to fall. Sam considered asking the Colonel in, but between her fears that he would misconstrue her offer as something more, and the worry that her townhouse was bugged by the very government agencies by whom she'd been given this non-life, she kept quiet.

Having mutually run out of things to say, she and Jack sat in companionable silence for a few more minutes, elbow to elbow on the top step. The streetlights were coming on in the evening light, halos of brightness against a dark sky in the misty rain.

Jack spoke up first. "I should go." He squinted up into the precipitation. "It's raining," he added unnecessarily.

"Afraid of a little rain, Colonel?" Sam didn't know if she could let him go. She clumsily tried to fill the gap left by his answering silence. "I think they call this a drizzle. Or maybe a sprinkle..." Sam's words trailed off and she sat staring at the street. The lights reflected and glared at her from the dark, wet pavement.

Beside her, Jack chuckled. "Only in Seattle would they have a hundred names for rain." He gestured his hands unhelpfully. "Like those Eskimos and their million names for snow."

"Inuit," Sam corrected automatically, and was reminded suddenly of Daniel's political correctness, and the emotional ties she still had to her other life. "I think they prefer 'Inuit'…" she elaborated lamely, trying to fill the emptiness. Sam was afraid to stop talking.

Sam knew she was just stalling against the inevitable moment she would find herself alone again.

Jack just smiled and nodded considerately. He got to his feet and descended the few steps to street level. He turned to meet Sam's eyes, suddenly serious. "I wish there was more I could do for you." His gaze was earnest. "This whole ... situation. It just ... sucks. More for yourself than for me, probably." Jack stared at the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets. He sighed and looked up again before adding meaningfully, "Can't miss what you haven't had."

Sam was unable to speak for a moment, and just swallowed back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. "Yeah," she finally said, her voice wavering. She wondered if Jack fully understood the significance those words held for her. She blinked a few times to clear her eyes, and shared one more considerable stare with the Colonel. Seeing the understanding he imparted in his gaze ... yeah, she supposed he understood.

Jack raised a hand in her direction as a farewell and she returned the gesture before he turned and walked away. Sam watched longingly as his profile alternately lightened and then dimmed under the streetlights in his journey down the block. As he finally disappeared into the distance, she pretended the moisture on her face was from the rain.

--

TBC

--

_Thanks so much for reading this second chapter. Things should pick up a bit plot-wise from here. Stay tuned to see what heroic deeds Sam decides to do with her life while she waits for Ba'al to attack. I mean, honestly, did you expect THE Sam Carter to just sit on her hands for a year? _

_Also, I feel I should note that the title Under the Streetlights was found in a song called "Sometime Around Midnight" by The Airborne Toxic Event -- the song that inspired this entire fic. Amazingly moving. Definitely worth a purchase!  
_

_I would love to hear your review! As a writer, I find feedback, positive OR negative, to be incredibly inspiring. Also, feel free to point out those pesky typos or other errors, like canon errors, because I like to correct them. Although, as you will soon see, canon is fickle when dealing with a time-travel story. _

_This is also the part where you tell me what you think about the chapter length. This one came out around 2500 words, which is a long-ish one for me. Is this an ok length? Readable? I could try to break them up more, but it just didn't feel right this time. I suppose I'm just being wordy. Let me know when wordy isn't ok. Like right now with this author's note._


	3. Chapter 3

_Ha! I hope you people are happy. Reviews work. Here is another chapter. I *was* taking a nice bubble bath, with my newest fantasy book purchase, but nooo, I can't concentrate enough on the first six pages because I'm thinking about THIS fic and all of the reviews saying, "Wow, can't wait to see where this goes!" And I'm lying there thinking, 'Wow, where DOES it go? People want to know!' And I can't type in the BUBBLE BATH so here I am, no longer in the bubble bath. And typing. Also, thank goodness you guys apparently like longer chapters because this one just kept going. Exposition does that…  
_

_Same disclaimer: I don't own the characters & I don't make money from them. Spoilers ahoy!_

_Here we go…_

_Enjoy.  
_

_--_

It was almost three weeks before Jack saw Samantha again. He had remained near Seattle for two days following their previous conversation, but Jack refused to give in to the temptation of another visit so soon. He was positive Samantha was under surveillance. He considered it a minor miracle that he hadn't been noticed loitering on her porch.

He had spent those two long days trying to understand why he could be drawn so strongly to a woman he, by all rights, didn't even know. At first Jack decided it was just the aspect of her fame that tugged him in. After all, he had seen astronaut Samantha Carter's face on television more times than he could count -- first when she joined NASA and took command of the first shuttle mission back out into space following the Columbia disaster. Samantha's beautiful face had given a new, updated and glamorous facade to the aging and under-funded space exploration program.

The second time her image had been plastered all over every media outlet imaginable had been at the time of her heroic death. As a former Air Force captain and the daughter of the late-great General Carter, Samantha's memorial service had been held on the front lawn of the White House, bringing in dignitaries of the highest degree.

After some time of reflection, however, Jack realized it wasn't Sam's notoriety that drew him to her. It was the fact that he felt comfortable around her. Spending time with Sam felt strangely familiar. He didn't know Colonel Samantha Carter beyond her well-known visage, but in some way Sam knew _him_. She followed his random subject changes with unsurpassed grace. She finished his sentences, yes, but even more -- she understood when Jack left a sentence unfinished for some unspoken reason. She wasn't distracted by his abject fidgeting, and several times during their long evening together, Jack had found his hand beneath one of hers as she -- unconsciously -- reached out with a touch to calm his frenetic movement.

Somewhere, somehow, Sam had found him worth knowing, and Jack couldn't stop himself from wondering why.

By Monday he'd been required to report to Bremerton in order to ship out on a joint recon mission with the US Navy. Seventeen days later, Jack was now ready to never set foot on a submarine again. They'd had zero luck recovering the "Stargate" that had gone down with the Achilles in the arctic with the first mission, and Jack wasn't sure why the Joint Chiefs had insisted on trying again. And again. Jack was relatively certain the Russians had something to do with the artifact's miraculous disappearance; they were, after all, nosing around that same sector of the arctic the very day that valuable piece of technology had gone to the bottom. Jack was also just as certain the Russians would continue to deny their involvement to their dying breath.

Jack had been too busy to realize just how much he wanted to see Sam again until he felt nothing but utter relief and anticipation when he received his temporary duty orders indicating that he was on TDY for the near future out of McChord Air Force Base.

And so Jack had found himself arranging a covert meeting between himself and one Samantha Carter.

He parked himself on a semi-secluded park bench at the designated location and waited.

The sun was high in a cloudless sky, a miracle for late May in Seattle apparently -- everyone and their mother was at the park. It was packed. All the better for hindering anyone with a parabolic listening device, Jack thought to himself, feeling a little smug about how well this meeting had come together. He adjusted his sunglasses and tried to be patient.

Jack had sent a typewritten note with the carefully chosen time, date, and place wrapped up in Sam's morning paper. He'd bribed her paper boy into delivering it by giving the teen a gift card to the local video game store; Jack knew how desperately thirteen-year-olds sought out video games of which their mothers didn't approve.

That night, at exactly twenty-one-hundred hours, Sam had opened the curtain of the uppermost window in her townhouse -- the signal saying she had agreed to meet him.

At the park, Jack checked his watch and frowned. The appointed time had come and gone two minutes prior. He scanned his surroundings once more, hoping to spot Sam. Instead, at the exact instant his scalp prickled indicating a presence behind him, he heard her voice, low and quiet.

"Hi Jack."

He smiled candidly and waited for her to come around to the front of the park bench. When ten or so seconds had passed without that happening, Jack began to fidget, the gravel of the pathway rough beneath the soles of his shoes. He thought any awkwardness between them had been banished after their long talk, and couldn't see why she would hesitate.

He finally dared to turn around and saw … nothing. Just a few trees. And a black and white dog chasing a Frisbee in the distance. He looked down and discovered the only evidence Sam had ever been there. An envelope was pinned to the back of the park bench, labeled simply … "J."

He palmed the crisp envelope and casually exited the park, not daring to open the envelope for three unbearable blocks. His curiosity gnawing at him, Jack simultaneously sat down in his car and tore open the seal of the note. Sam's handwritten message was stark against the white page. He began to read.

_Hi,_ _I have some things to talk about with you that cannot be discussed out in the open. Meet me in three hours, downtown. Pier 48. Take the tour._

_See you there. --S_

Jack started up his car and headed for the Central Business District of Seattle.

Wandering down Main Street, he stepped into a bookstore and realized it was somewhere one could get lost as well as hide. Elliot Bay Book Company, the signage humbly stated. The red neon sign in the window proclaimed, "Read." Jack stood somewhere in the middle surrounded on all sides by books and decided that this was one of those mysterious places that appeared bigger on the inside than on the outside. With books new and old stacked nearly to the ceiling on wooden shelves, and the twenty-foot high exposed brick walls, Jack felt like he'd stepped back in time.

Following the neat little arrows, wooden floor creaking beneath his feet, Jack headed to the café to have a coffee and waste time until it was time to meet Samantha. Finding the café was no small feat in itself. Elliot's was all lofts and turns, shelves and mysterious hidden corners. Jack finally arrived at the nostalgic coffee shop downstairs. He ordered his drink and sat down to wait.

There was only so much for a bored Jack O'Neill to do while he waited, and Jack grew bored quickly. Two coffees, one donut, and sixteen elaborate paper airplanes later, Jack and the barista were both very relieved when his wait was finally up.

Leaving the bookstore, Jack walked a few blocks and reached Pier 48 shortly -- having taken incredible care to be sure he wasn't being followed. The seagulls were squawking wildly at the tourists' arrival. Jack tried to blend in with the crowd while ignoring the cacophony overhead. Some of the loudest birds dove in for a closer look at the coffees and snacks in the milling tourists' hands.

Jack paid for his entry and was only slightly surprised when the cashier handed him a small note along with the ticket. When he realized just what he would be touring, he stopped short and blinked in annoyance. Jack was not a happy camper.

The note said simply, _Meet me in the battery room._

Jack set his jaw and marched out toward the water, following the small crowd.

He steeled himself, descended the narrow ladder, and headed in the opposite direction of the noisy tour, winding through tiny hallways and ducking through bulkhead doors. When he finally found Sam amidst the tangle of wiring in the battery room, he narrowed his eyes at her. "A foxtrot-class sub, Sam? A _Russian _submarine? For crying out loud, I can't think of anywhere else on the _planet _I'd want to be _less _right now," he snapped. His body was taut with pent up frustration.

Sam's blue eyes widened slightly at his outburst and he immediately felt a bit guilty. Jack continued to hold the glare for good measure, though. He honestly wanted nothing more than to be out of the water on firm ground with air surrounding him on all sides once more. The last place he expected to be when he woke up this morning was on a _bolshaya-_thirty-nine, foxtrot class Russian vessel -- prom queen of her Soviet Pacific Fleet. This may have been one of the largest Soviet subs ever built, but there was only so much breathing room to be found on a sub with a twenty foot draft.

Sam looked more than a little stunned at his discomfort. "S-sorry, I didn't think you -- wait, you couldn't possibly remember--" She closed her eyes for a moment and appeared to gather her thoughts.

To her credit, Sam looked like she probably regretted the meeting place. Or perhaps the meeting itself. Jack couldn't tell which was more likely.

--

When Sam had boarded the submarine, she'd had a rush of distressing memories.

She remembered all too well the day they had almost lost Jack, her Jack, to the replicators. He had been beamed out of the Russian sub at almost the very same second it had been destroyed by the torpedoes launched from one Los Angeles Class USS Dallas. It had been a close call. She still remembered his joyous greeting when he'd arrived on the Asgard vessel. '_Now THAT is what I call TIMING!'_

Jack had been beamed in to rematerialize in a fetal position on the floor. Not only had the submarine been bombarded, but Jack had been under physical attack himself by the mechanical bugs. She shuddered at the recollection. Sam understood why she felt uncomfortable being here on the submarine where her Jack had come so close to dying.

What she couldn't understand was why this Jack, who hadn't experienced the original timeline, who had never met a replicator, would feel the same way.

She finally met his eyes with her own, questioningly, and Jack elaborated. "I just spent seventeen straight days on a sub --" he glanced around to make sure no one was listening. " -- intercepting Russian intel. If I can't be on land for a good long while, a long way from anything Russian, I'm going to go bonkers. In case you haven't noticed, it gets a tad close for comfort being stuck in a _sardine can_ like this _underwater!_" Jack stretched his arms out to the side, slapping the bulkheads with his palms for good measure. The entire room was less than six feet wide.

Sam was less than impressed with the reasoning behind his discomfort. Didn't he realize what dire circumstances the other him had to endure on a near daily basis with a minimum of complaints? Well, actually, no, she realized -- he had no idea.

She decided to explain. "You -- the other you -- almost died in the sinking of a foxtrot class sub. Codename Blackbird. You were saving the world. Again. I think you'll survive a few hours on a safely docked submarine full of tourists, _sir," _she said, impetuously adding the honorific in the hopes Jack would be reminded of his status as a war veteran and decorated officer of the USAF. She turned her back to him and moved away to the far side of the narrow room before speaking again. "At least this time you aren't being chased by mechanical replicating bugs and the sub isn't being blown up by a Los Angeles Class attack submarine."

Jack took a deep breath to continue the argument, but paused instead, his one hand raised in Sam's direction. He lowered it until he was pointing at the floor. "Wait. What?" He had the decency to look slightly abashed. And confused.

"Anyway," Sam turned back to Jack and pantomimed apostrophes in the air while she continued, "This 'sardine can' is the best I could come up with for a secure meeting place on such short notice. Restricted entry, metal walls, not to mention the fact that radio waves travel much less efficiently through water … I think it's a great place for a clandestine meeting." She checked her watch. "We have until eighteen-hundred hours."

"How did you manage that? Generally when one tours a submarine, doesn't one … ah, tour?" Jack questioned.

Sam glanced down at the floor and then back up again, feeling slightly embarrassed by the cover story. "I told them it's our anniversary and that I wanted to have a celebratory picnic aboard the Cobra because my husband is such a fan of war memorabilia."

At Jack's amused snort, Sam smiled playfully. "I'll have you know they thought I was a very good wife. We have the battery room because it's so out of the way."

The corners of Jack's mouth turned up in the way that Sam knew meant Jack was amused but trying not to show it. "Very romantic, Sam. Thank you." He impatiently waved his hand at her to go on.

Sam sat down in the narrow space between the decommissioned batteries and gestured for Jack to join her. She pulled out a backpack. "I've already activated a small jamming device. You can speak freely." Pausing, Sam looked up at Jack and met his eyes earnestly. "And I expect that nothing we discuss will leave this room. If the authorities were to find out what I've been planning, I would most likely be remanded to custody immediately. I would probably never see daylight again."

At Jack's startled look, Sam realized how that sounded, and acted to reassure him. "No, no, It's not like I'm planning treason, or anything like it. It's just that there is … a non-disclosure agreement. But seeing as I blurted out the Stargate's existence to you as soon as we met on the sub, well…" Sam gestured helplessly to indicate how she felt that it didn't apply to Jack. Wouldn't apply to any Jack O'Neill, whatever the existence. She needed Jack. Couldn't do this without him.

Jack searched her eyes for a moment before finally nodded his understanding. His posture relaxed a little and he found space for himself on the floor opposite Sam, his back against a bulkhead, elbows resting casually on his knees.

Sam took a deep breath and began her briefing.

"Almost a decade ago, your other self and myself --" Sam blinked, momentarily taken aback by the odd statement. "We successfully completed an important mission here near Seattle."

Jack's eyebrows came together, a wrinkle forming between his brows. "I thought you said we traveled to other planets in that timeline."

"We did. But this was one of those occasions in which the extraterrestrial threat was on Earth." Sam passed several pieces of paper to Jack. One was a picture of a goateed man with dark hair. She tapped the paper with her index finger and continued. "_That _is a man known as Seth Fargough."

Jack raised his eyebrows. "Fargo? As in, 'yeahsureyoubetcha'?"

"Yes, 'Far-go,' like the city. But I'm pretty sure 'yeahsureyoubetcha' is more Minnesota than North Dakota."

"How'd you…"

"I've spent some time at the cabin, Jack. Minnesota. Pond. Fishing?"

Jack gave a slow, measured nod. Sam could see his mind wander at the mention of his stomping ground and rural escape.

She snapped her fingers to bring Jack back to the conversation. She touched the map where there was an outline of a substantial building and its surrounding defenses. "Seth Fargough has a compound north of Seattle, heavily fortified, armed to the teeth. AK-47s, UZI SMGs, and at least one fifty-cal."

Jack mouthed the word, 'Wow,' silently.

Sam met his gaze pointedly and said, "As well as several _other _varieties of weapons with which you are _not _acquainted." Jack shot Sam a look that told her just how likely he thought it was that there were any weapons in existence he had no experience with, and Sam realized just how glad she was that this particular Jack had never been on the receiving end of a hand device, staff weapon, pain stick, or zat'n'ktel.

She closed her eyes, momentarily overwhelmed by a sudden influx of images permanently burned into her mind after years at war. Jack being shot by a staff weapon and dropping at her feet. Feeling the burning shiver of the zat's energy quake over her body, helpless and unable to move as Jack was zapped to fall heavily alongside her. Standing only inches from Jack O'Neill, separated by a blue energy barrier, silently begging him to leave before they would both die in a tremendous explosion of metal and fire.

Sam opened her eyes only to meet one of Jack's inquiring gazes. She allowed herself one small, sad look but quickly composed her emotions.

Sam shuffled through Jack's papers to bring the relevant pages of file number 120914 to the top.

She focused her mind back to the business at hand and pointed to a paragraph near the top of the page. "Seth commands his own small army of nearly eighty brainwashed followers. The US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have been investigating him for the better part of a decade, though so far, they've been content to simply survey. Apparently they haven't had sufficient motivations to move on the situation in this timeline."

"What about in yours?"

"Well, in my timeline, when SG1 -- our team -- showed up, the ATF team stationed nearby got all hopped up and wanted to move in right away as support once we went in. Having the Air Force involved made them think Seth was a bigger threat than they'd originally assumed. They may also have thought he possessed some advanced technology." Sam bit her lip and felt sheepish at having to utter the next words. "Having the President call and put the other you in command of their little operation didn't help, either."

Jack looked dubious. "The _President, _Sam?"

Sam flashed him a sudden, teasing grin at the recollection. "Yeah. The President had a thing for you."

Jack still looked unconvinced and Sam waved a hand to brush off her reference to the commander in chief.

"Here's the thing," Sam said. "I need to go in and take out Seth." She met Jack's eyes intently, willing him to believe in this mission.

"What? Why would you go and do a thing like that?"

"Because he's Goa'uld."

--

_TBC_

_--_

_AN: Thank you to the powers that be for putting Sam in Seattle where she can do some good while waiting for Ba'al to attack! Like Sam would ignore a living, breathing Goa'uld practically in her backyard. Pfft._

_And now for some insight into the writing process: I had a lot of trouble being happy enough with this chapter to post it … kept doing edit after edit. After edit. I'm still getting used to this "new" Jack, and didn't quite realize what I was getting into when I started the fic. Several reviewers have hit the nail on the head: he is quite different from the Jack I'm used to writing, having been in Spec. Ops. for ten years longer and for never having had the rug pulled from beneath him so thoroughly by his son's accidental death. Not to mention, he hasn't endured at least eight years of UST between himself and Sam. ;) This Jack is hard to figure out. I've spent literally hours doing research on different military aspects of his life to get a handle on the character (including recently declassified information about the USAF's covert activities in Vietnam). I think (hope) I'm there now._

_Hope it was readable! The reviews are very appreciated! I love that so many people have taken the time to let me know how I'm doing. Keep it up! I'd love feedback on what you think._

_Oh, and yes: you can indeed tour a foxtrot class Soviet submarine similar to the one featured in "Small Victories" (Season 4, Ep. 1 -- yeahsureyoubetcha!) at Pier 48 in Seattle. I do not, however, know if they would approve of picnics in the battery room._


	4. Chapter 4

_Same disclaimer: I don't own them. Same spoiler warning: nothing is sacred, read at your own risk._

_AN: I apologize for the minor delay in getting this chapter to you. I have no excuse. Wait, I do! Um, for one, I gave up coffee this week, which should definitely count as an excuse, as I classified myself as non-human for three full days while going through the physical withdrawal from caffeine. And two, I discovered Compromised, a 128,000 word WIP by MerryKK right here on FFdotnet. AMAZING story; it's like nothing else I've ever read. I had to read it straight through, which took up some serious time (and sleep). Check it out. It's on my favorites list now. _

_I also apologize in advance for the thousand-plus words of technobabble contained herein. I couldn't help myself.  
_

_Enjoy._

_--_

_Previously:_

"_Here's the thing," Sam said. "I need to go in and take out Seth." She met Jack's eyes intently, willing him to believe in this mission._

"_What? Why would you go and do a thing like that?"_

"_Because he's Goa'uld."_

--

Chapter 4

--

"Goold." Jack repeated evenly.

Sam nodded.

Jack felt his relaxed posture vanish as he tensed against the metal bulkhead. "Is 'Goold' anything like 'Russian?' Because I told you, I've dealt with the Russians a lot over the past few months. Enough to last me for the next eighty years."

"No, Jack. The Goa'uld are like nothing you've ever seen." She hesitated, staring at her hands before completing her declaration. "The Goa'uld are _worse _than anything you've ever seen."

Jack cocked his head to the side. He pressed himself to speak quietly. Calmly. "That's sayin' a lot, you know." He looked Samantha squarely in the eye, silently asking if she understood the gravity of that statement.

Sam met his stare and nodded once. She understood. Jack found himself wondering once more just how much her Jack and himself had in common.

Jack O'Neill had enlisted into the Air Force at one of the most tumultuous times in modern American history. Fed up with the guerrilla violence occurring at home in response to the Vietnam war abroad, he had done the only thing he felt he could do to make a difference. During the summer of 1970, at nearly eighteen, Jack went down to the recently firebombed Air Force recruiting office and signed himself up, hoping that he could somehow personally do something to end the war in Vietnam.

After a whirlwind visit to Basic Training where he celebrated his eighteenth birthday and was shaped into a semblance of an airman, Jack had been shipped out to Vietnam before his head stopped spinning.

By Jack's twentieth birthday, he had proved his worth to the USAF on the ground, protecting their air base, and was up in air dropping ordinance from fighter aircraft, time and time again. He worked his way up the ranks, made an exceptional leap from enlisted to officer, and soon found himself fighting clandestine wars that weren't being advertised back home -- first in Laos and Cambodia and then in Latin America. His uniform bore no US markings, and he carried weaponry that was not American standard issue. Working alongside the CIA, Jack did not exist and the Geneva Convention no longer applied.

Thus began a career for Jack in committing acts of atrocity he would not -- and usually could not -- speak of ever again. He was proud to have served, and would do it all over again knowing what he knew now, but he would never willingly burden any other person with the knowledge of the necessary evils that had to be performed in the midst of war -- declared or not.

Jack guarded that knowledge closely, knowing that the average human being would not want to touch him. He with hands that intuitively knew what it felt like to slice through another human being's throat -- the snapping of the sinews so quickly shorn, followed by the hot, wet, bubbling gush across the fingers and hand as the individual's life force gurgled away. If the combatant had resisted thoroughly, Jack's arm might feel the jarring scrape of bone as the cutting edge of his blade met unyielding spine.

His hands had known violence, and he just tried to keep others from seeing their stains.

Jack flexed his hands one at a time to shake the memories, and brought his attention back to the paper printouts in his lap. He pulled the photo and placed it on top of the stack. Examining the face staring out at him from the page, O'Neill said the first thing that came to mind.

"He looks human."

"That's because he was human ... a few thousand years ago," Sam responded matter-of-factly. Jack's startled gaze met Sam's eyes once again. "Although, Jack, if you want to get technical, the host's _body _is still human. It is only the Goa'uld -- the parasite or 'snake' -- inside that is alien. I am, of course, going on the assumption that Seth has in his possession a sarcophagus." Her hand thoughtfully tapped a staccato rhythm against her knee.

Jack sent a questioning look Sam's way, and she explained.

"The sarcophagus is, essentially, a life-giving device. It sustains human life to an outrageous degree when used regularly, and the recently dead can be revived if placed within the sarcophagus in time. The Goa'uld use it to maintain the body of their hosts. Without the sarcophagus, Seth would have had to take new hosts repeatedly as their bodies aged … " Sam paused here, and Jack watched as a shadow passed behind her eyes. "I don't see how he could have survived all this time taking a new host every fifty or eighty years," she said, almost to herself.

Jack hesitated, but felt he had to ask. "Why not?"

Sam shook herself from her contemplation and looked him compellingly in the eye. "The effort required by a symbiote to suppress the host's mind is astronomical, unthinkable. It would have to take an incredible toll, psychologically and physically. As the Goa'uld takes control of the host's body, the host is forcefully relegated to the smallest corner of the mind ... constricted, controlled. Extant only for that which is required to keep the body alive. But sentient. Helpless to do anything except ... _watch_ as the Goa'uld uses the body to commit unspeakable horrors."

Jack saw the quiver of revulsion that went through Sam's body as she looked away. Jack could see her trying to shutter her emotions once again.

"Sounds horrible," Jack replied, at a loss for anything of substance to say. He found his voice was thick with revulsion for what the creatures could do to a human body.

"It _was_ horrible," came Sam's quick reply. She was still avoiding his eye, instead staring off into space somewhere to Jack's left, her arms hugged tight against her body.

The realization hit him suddenly. It struck him like a punch to the kidney, and Jack found it difficult to breathe. Samantha Carter had been invaded -- _violated -- _by one of those snakes. He took a deep breath and flattened his palms against the cold metal floor. She'd had an alien in her head.

A thought occurred to him, and Jack gestured with one hand while still bracing his body with the other. "You don't -- don't still -- " Jack grimaced, pointed to her and then to his head, trying to express the question in some way or another. Suddenly nervous, he took comfort in the presence of his sidearm holstered at the small of his back.

She met his eyes with a shaky smile.

"No. It's gone. I was actually kind of lucky. The symbiote that, ah … 'blended' with me was one of the good ones." She rolled her eyes a little at the statement.

"A good Goa'uld?" Jack raised his eyebrows, his body relaxing by degrees, but still dubious as to whether or not there could be a "good" alien with the ability to take over human bodies. He searched Sam's face for signs of dissemblance, but didn't find any.

"Yeah, there aren't many, but they do exist. They call themselves the Tok'ra. They are a resistance group fighting against the Goa'uld. Normally one would never take a host by force. But this one felt the need to, for whatever reason. She did, however, give her own life to save mine in the end." Sam's smile strengthened. "I got my body back. That doesn't happen very often."

"Yeah…" Jack said, hesitantly. "Lucky you." Jack sat in silence for a few minutes, rubbing his brow and thinking, and Sam let him be.

He was feeling overwhelmed at Sam's revelations about body snatching snake-like aliens. He'd felt a similar sense of awe the day he'd been briefed on the recovery of the Stargate device.

Jack had previously just assumed that Mitchell, Carter, and Jackson had been nuts, or exaggerating, or ... something, anything other than the fact that they could actually travel to other planets and timelines via the Stargate. But when he'd been pulled into a meeting with the Joint Chiefs and given command of the mission to find the ring-shaped artifact and told why it was a matter of national security that the mission be a success ... Jack had privately been overcome.

He hadn't included in the original arctic mission report all of the personal information the new 'guests' had known about himself. Or the fact that they had -- he thought -- threatened his son by name. As soon as the vessel had broken radio silence near shore, Jack had called home to reassure himself by hearing Charlie's voice. He'd then sent his son back to the university early and called in a few favors, having colleagues of his check things out to make sure no one was a danger to Charlie.

So when Jack had found out the gate truly worked as the three freaks had described, that they weren't insane by any measure, he'd been plagued by the knowledge that out there, somewhere, there really was a Jack O'Neill who had failed as a father. One who had lost his only child.

Absorbing all he now knew about the Goa'uld, Jack knew he couldn't allow such a threat to exist anywhere on earth. Jack decided then and there that he was at war with the Goa'uld.

Decision made, Jack spoke -- his tone firm and confident. "What do you need from me?"

Sam's head snapped up from where it had been resting against her palm, and her posture straightened. "You'll help?" Her voice was hopeful.

"Yep." Jack put out a hand in a gesture of reservation. "As much as I can. If it's weapons you want, I don't know if I can --"

"No," Sam breathed. She shook her head. "I wouldn't ask that of you. I do need papers, though. Identification, a passport."

Jack nodded slowly, thinking carefully, filing through the contacts he'd made over the years. "_That,_ I can do."

--

The next forty-eight hours were a whirlwind of activity for Sam Carter. If she had stopped working long enough to think, she would have been touched at the fact that Jack had revealed a trust for her. He hadn't asked for what sort of travel she needed identification and passport, and Sam hadn't volunteered the information. He had simply agreed to do the favor for her. Sam hadn't asked who he knew that was talented at whipping up false passports at short notice, and he hadn't volunteered the information either.

A mutual trust was growing between the two of them. But Sam didn't have time to stop to revel in that fact. She had work to do.

Sam had saved up a small stash of cash money, using the cash-back feature of the debit card that had been assigned to her by the US government as access to her monthly stipend. Using that less-traceable cash, Sam now traveled to several small electronics and computer stores -- located well away from her home -- and made some useful purchases.

Within several hours of her return home, she had designed a working electronics detector, and did a well-overdue sweep of her bland living space. Sam was stunned to discover that she had, in fact, been left relatively unmonitored. The only device she located was the piece of equipment monitoring her internet and phone usage. There were no acoustic recording devices, no cameras.

Point one for team Samantha Carter.

Sam settled herself on the well-worn brown leather couch, pulled out her second-hand laptop, and began to methodically arrange other pieces of equipment around her -- plugging things in as she went. The machine was powerful and it quickly warmed in her lap as she began to type furiously. Sam set up series after series of anonymous proxy servers to conceal her location. With the stroke of a key, Sam then initiated the program she'd written that would continuously switch proxy servers every few seconds for additional obscurity. She was a ghost in their machines.

Time to get down to business.

A short while later, Sam had confirmed that the kernel rootkit establishing her as root user on the government system was still functioning as designed. The backdoor program was virtually undetectable, even if some alert securities administrator happened to be reviewing process tables. Getting the program in place had been no small feat -- requiring patience and some luck at hacking just the right system so the loadable kernel module could sneak in along with the routine update containing some new filesystems.

Sam set up the search program that would automatically download relevant data files containing specific keywords in which she was interested. After verifying that the files were copying properly, she moved on.

Her next project was a close inspection of the cell phone assigned to her by the government at her time of release.

She located the hacked version of BitPim already on her laptop's external hard drive, and accessed the machine code of her CDMA phone. Initiating the decompiler, she began to examine the source coding now illuminated brightly on the screen of her laptop. Line after line of white on black, Sam scrutinized every command, experimenting carefully in the window containing an emulation program as she went.

As she suspected, the process was logging her location but was only programmed to alert the authorities in two circumstances -- if she were to travel out of the state of Washington, and if the phone happened to be left idle and motionless for more than fourteen hours at a time.

The evening light faded behind Sam's drawn shades. Opening a second can of diet Coke, she kept working on into the night. Lamps forgotten, Samantha sat working single-mindedly, surrounded by the bastardized electronics equipment, her face's only illumination the otherworldly blue glow of the laptop screen.

By five the next morning, Sam was fairly confident she had come up with the solution. It was easy -- if time consuming -- to design a new program that would feed false coordinates to the phone, simulating the changes in location that would occur throughout an average day in the life of Sam. Scribbling the math out longhand, she made the appropriate last minute adjustments, finished programming the conditional execution of the commands, and finally set up the desired repetition. After deactivating the motion- and force-detecting accelerometer within her phone, Sam piggybacked a second file into the cell phone, one that would send out data that mimicked the signals from the now defunct mechanism.

While waiting for the upload to complete, Sam idly thought about how relieved she was that this government had no official file on her, or at least not one that covered the depth of her experience with computer programming. The Samantha Carter of this timeline had never won the International Obfuscated C Code Contest _or _the International Obfuscated Perl Code Contest. And definitely not both in the same year.

Sam had.

She knew there was no way she would have been let loose into this timeline with nothing but a simple CDMA device and wiretap to verify her location and contacts if the other Samantha been officially proficient at the manipulation and creation of code.

Sam felt a small part of her ache at the necessary switch of identities. She had gone from just the infrequent white hat hacker, running tests on the systems at the SGC for security purposes, to her new role as black hat hacker, illegally breaking into some of the most secured systems in the nation to track down some very classified information needed to fight Seth. Another small part of her, a part Sam had been determinedly ignoring, was currently finding her zero-day hacking exploits a bit exhilarating.

A small smile ghosted across her lips at the realization. She'd always been an adrenaline junkie. Catching sight of the indications that classified data was flowing into her data storage device, she felt that same little thrill that always came from the unknown.

It was in that moment of early morning realization that the firm knock came at the door, and Sam was reminded of what a _true _adrenaline rush felt like. Controlled panic set in, and she reached into the couch with her right hand, pulling out her nine-millimeter to protect herself, while desperately trying to shut down the illegal backdoor hack to the national database with the left.

She removed the final flash drive of downloaded data and tucked it under the loose floorboard with the rest. Setting the wooden panel in place and stepping down to seat it firmly and invisibly in place, she turned to the front of the house and performed a quick press check on the gun to make sure a bullet was chambered.

The knock sounded again, and Sam took up a defensive position in the hallway, weapon at the ready. She could see a silhouette stark against her window in the early morning sun, heard the door handle being maneuvered, and Sam knew she wouldn't have time to magnetically wipe the hard drives before the door blew in.

_--_

_TBC_

_--_

_AN: If the technobabble lost you, so sorry. Although I'd like to think anyone peeking inside Sam Carter's head would feel lost at times. And if, by chance, you are g33k enough to recognize the fact that I probably butchered the whole technobabble section, I am so sorry, and I bow down before your 31337 self. I'm not a hacker or computer programmer -- I just try to write one in fanfic._

_Reviews would be wonderful. I now feel bad for the writers of Stargate… how many briefing room scenes did they have to write? And technobabbly ones? Man. That would be so hard to do. I really dislike writing exposition… How did I do?  
_

_I would like to point out that this fic is going to be loooong. Like, 25 chapters long, I'm estimating. So in the grand scheme of things, we're just getting going. Enjoy the ride -- just like roller coasters, this fic will have its ups and downs. And maybe a few hairpin turns.  
_


	5. Chapter 5

_The usual disclaimer and spoiler warning apply. Also, a warning for language is now in effect. If the F-bomb truly offends you, let me know. But I feel the occasional bad word matches the T rating. I know I've been using the F-word since well before the age of fourteen. Maybe I was a trucker in another life? _

_Oh, and I should point this out now so you can't say I didn't warn you: I didn't label this fic w/ "angst" for that emotional first chapter alone. In case you haven't seen it, Continuum's ending is very very tragic before it gets happy again. This fic will follow the same route. So people *will* die, and not necessarily in the same order as you see onscreen. But please trust me to pull it together in the end. This is a fill-in, and not an AU. You'll see…_

_Enjoy._

_--_

_Previously:_

_The firm knock came at the door, and Sam was reminded of what a true adrenaline rush felt like. Controlled panic set in, and she reached into the couch with her right hand, pulling out her nine-millimeter to protect herself, while desperately trying to shut down the illegal backdoor hack to the national database with the left._

_She removed the final disk of downloaded data and tucked it under the loose floorboard with the rest. Setting the wooden panel in place and stepping down to seat it firmly and invisibly in place, she turned to the front of the house and performed a quick press check on the gun to make sure a bullet was chambered._

_The knock sounded again, and Sam took up a defensive position in the hallway, weapon at the ready. She could see a silhouette stark against her window in the early morning sun, heard the door handle being maneuvered, and Sam knew she wouldn't have time to magnetically wipe the hard drives before the door blew in._

_--_

Chapter 5

--

Moving swiftly, Sam took a dozen silent steps and positioned herself to the side of the doorway, flattening her body against the chill wall. Her ear caught the sound of a metallic lock-pick being applied, and she watched as the locks quickly yielded. The handle of the door turned.

Sam tensed her body as the door opened, waiting to time her attack just right.

Light flooded into the entryway as the unfamiliar profile came into full view. Sam's mind raced. She could see from the silhouette on the floor in the morning light that he was alone and she chose that moment to act.

It all happened in one rapid sequence of movements. Sam stepped forward and elbowed the door -- hard -- sending it away from herself and revealing her shadowed position. Startled, the man turned to Sam and tried to throw a punch. Sidestepping it, she grabbed his wrist, stepped a foot in front of his toes, and used the forward momentum of his punch and a sharp blow with her elbow to the back of his shoulders to put him on the floor. By the time the door slammed behind them, Sam had the guy belly down on the floor with a knee in his back, her left hand pinning an arm up high between his shoulder blades -- her nine-millimeter was pressed firmly into the back of his head.

"Don't move," she hissed. Her hair was loose and Sam blew it away from her eyes.

"Not moving! Not moving!" came the muffled reply. His face was buried in the entryway rug.

Reassured by his lack of struggles, Sam shifted her hold and moved his arm to a position at his back that would be slightly less painful. She felt the muscles in his body relax a little at the relief.

She took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself and clear her head. "Why are you here?" Sam worked hard to keep her voice and grip steady, despite the amount of adrenaline coursing through her system.

The man's response was still muffled, but it sounded like, "Back pocket."

Sam didn't budge, knowing that moving either of her hands at this particular moment would give the guy on the floor the upper hand. If she released his arm, he would be free to use both hands to lever his body in such a way that she would be bucked off. If she moved to put down the gun, he could easily grapple for it or decide to take her on hand-to-hand.

As if sensing her hesitation, he spoke again. "I'm not moving. Promise."

Sam set her jaw and moved his arm down so she could firmly pin his wrist between her knee and the small of his back. She felt his body slowly rise and sink as he sighed in frustration. Locating an envelope in one of the man's back pockets she took the opportunity to pat down his profile -- he was carrying no weapons. Using her free hand, she opened the flap on the envelope and shook out the contents. _Shit. _An image of her own face stared up at her from the passport on the floor, and Sam promptly holstered her weapon in the back of her jeans, rolled off him, and stood to offer him a hand up. A friend of Jack's was a friend of hers.

He simply lay there on the floor for a moment, blinking at Sam's sudden change in demeanor. He eventually opted to help _himself _up while ignoring her hand, and stood awkwardly in the gloom of the darkened entryway.

Sam scrutinized him as he stood there rubbing one wrist, glaring back at her.

He finally spoke. "My dad sent me."

Stunned, Samantha took a moment to take in the lanky build, the mop of unruly light-brown hair, the youthful scowl on the adult face, and the chocolate-eyed gaze before her. "Charlie?" Sam questioned, her voice incredulous.

He nodded once, and she stumbled back to take a seat on the low bench behind her.

Her eyes didn't leave his for a single second as she took in the realization that the Charlie she'd seen in pictures, the Charlie she'd seen haunting Jack O'Neill's eyes -- he was standing here in front of her. Her throat tightened and she had to look away. What her Jack wouldn't have given to see the man his son would have grown into…

After a short moment of reverie, going over the what-ifs, Sam had to stop that part of her mind from thinking and bring herself back to the present. When she met Charlie's eyes -- God, this really was _Charlie, _her mind screamed -- his gaze was questioning.

"You okay?" he asked quietly. He looked confused and uncomfortable.

"Fine," Sam reassured, and took a deep breath. "So," she said with a false brightness. "Uh, how old are you now?"

"Twenty-one. You knew me when I was a kid?"

Sam shook her head. "No, but I've seen pictures." She paused, and then kept talking to fill the awkward silence. "I thought you were away at college."

"The semester ended last week. Summer vacation. I don't get to see my Dad often. So when SOCCENT brings him stateside, I try to visit. I'm planning to stay until he's given his next assignment…" Charlie shifted his weight to the heels of his feet, rocking slightly where he stood.

"Oh." Sam nodded absentmindedly, still trying to think of a way to tell Jack O'Neill that she had violently pinned his unarmed son in a classic Delta Sierra move … and then her brows furrowed as a realization came to her. "Charlie, I'm willing to bet your dad didn't ask you to break into my house."

It wasn't a question, and Charlie's shoulders drooped. "No, he didn't. He told me to put the envelope in your mail drop." Before Sam could reply, he jumped in to defend himself verbally, gesturing with his hands as he went. "But you don't have a mail drop! And when I saw what was in the envelope I knew I couldn't leave it out at the street in your mailbox."

"Charlie…" Sam's voice was unsympathetic. She avoided a smile at the thought of just how like his father this man was. "I'm also willing to bet that Jack told you _not _to look in the envelope." She raised her eyebrows and waited.

Charlie bit his lip before giving in to a wily grin. "You got me there."

Sam just sighed. "Sit down."

"Can I call my dad?"

"Yeah, I really think you need to."

--

Back at the base, Jack was stomping heatedly to a phone after being paged by the giant voice. He wasn't really angry, having just been pulled from a mind-numbing training exercise he happened to be commanding for the third time this quarter. He was glad to be free of the BOREX but wanted to appear appropriately angry at the interruption. Several moments later, the plastic phone cold against his ear, Jack barked his own name into the receiver.

"O'Neill!" It was always best to give the impression that one was being interrupted. Calls tended to be shorter if one started them out with a shout.

Charlie's voice come across the line. _"Dad, your girlfriend is fuckin' nuts."_

"Excuse me?" Jack had heard Charlie, but he knew Charlie would take the phrase as intended -- as a reprimand for the language, and not a request for a repeat performance.

"_No, dad, I'm serious. She's crazy. And I don't think she's going to let me leave."_

Jack took his hat off his head and ran his hand across the short-cropped hair in frustration. He'd known better than to think Charlie could pull off a simple errand, but he'd had his hopes. "Charlie … what did you do?" The silence on the other end of the line told Jack everything he needed to know. He sighed. "Hand the phone to the lady."

"_But dad --"_

"Now."

Jack heard a juvenile growl of annoyance as the phone passed hands, and then Samantha came on the line. _"Hi Jack."_

"Hello to you too. And whatever Charlie did, I'm sure he didn't mean to." Jack pressed the tips of his fingers to his forehead in annoyance.

The chuckle on the other end of the line warmed Jack's mood, and he found himself smiling. "What?"

"_Nothing, Jack. It was most definitely done on purpose, but I think he just may have learned his lesson." _Jack could hear the smile in her voice. _"I'm going to let Charlie tell you what happened when you get here."_

"I'm coming over? That okay to do?" Jack knew Sam had been worried about any conversations of theirs being monitored.

Her bright, "Yep!" assuaged his fears, and Jack found himself agreeing to cut his day short.

Three hours later, having left his class in the capable hands one Lieutenant-Colonel Osborne, Jack found himself in his car, pulling up to a curb two blocks away from Sam's place. She'd implied it was safe to come over, but he still assumed he shouldn't hold up a sign announcing the fact that he was visiting Colonel Doctor Samantha Carter, timeline-traveler and astrophysicist extraordinaire.

When his knock was answered and he entered her home, Jack silently added 'gizmo-collector' to the mental list at the end of Sam's name. He took in the doodads and gadgets covering most of the flat surfaces of her home and turned to Sam and smiled. He held out one hand toward the nearest disassembled object in a small gesture of wonder. "Hobby?" His eyebrows raised playfully and he removed his hat.

"Something of the sort," Sam replied. She turned away, but not in time to hide the smile. "I was going a little crazy without my lab," she called over her shoulder as she headed into the kitchen.

Jack poked his head around the corner into what he discovered was the living room, and spotted his son sitting sullenly on the couch. His footsteps heavy on the wooden floor as he crossed the room, Jack chose to sit down in an adjacent chair. "Charlie," he acknowledged.

"Dad," his son mumbled back. Charlie was playing a game on his cell phone, and Jack wondered idly just when phones started coming with games. And just who would want to play them on such a tiny screen. That's what fifty-two inch flat screens are for, he mused, imagining in his head the ability to practice air combat maneuvering in his living room, though he knew he would lament the lack of g-forces. Jack assumed they'd have that part figured out within a few years, though. He had moved on to some flathatting and was skimming the plane through a canyon in his mind when Sam's tap to his shoulder brought him back to reality.

She handed him a beer, wordlessly, and he wasn't entirely surprised to realize it was his favorite kind. Jack nodded his thanks while he absorbed the fact that Sam kept her fridge stocked with his favorite beer.

Handing Charlie the second beer, from which she'd removed the lid already, Sam sat down on the couch and opened the third for herself, tossing the bottle opener to Jack. He cracked off the lid while silently observing the pair on the couch.

Jack sipped the bitter brew and fiddled with the bottle cap in his hand. He settled back and watched Sam and Charlie from the corner of his eye, and neither of them seemed willing to offer up any information as to what had brought this little meeting upon them all.

He could wait.

Jack was almost done with the first beer before Sam finally gave out. Rolling her eyes at Charlie, she held something up with her right hand, and seeing she had Jack's attention, tossed it to him. He caught the thing, no, several somethings clipped together, and his eyes widened in recognition. Jack winced. _Charlie Tyler O'Neill, _he railed in his mind_. _It was a lock pick kit. Turning to Sam, he asked, "Is this how he got in the house?"

Sam quirked her eyebrows and nodded the affirmative.

Jack turned to his son. "What the hell, Charlie?" Sam stood up and walked to the kitchen, giving them a moment together.

Charlie began his defense. "It's not what you think, Dad. You told me to put it in the mail drop and there was no mail drop. I was just going to put the envelope in the house for her, where it was safe." He leaned in, confidentially, and lowered his voice. "That didn't give her the right to act like a crazy person!" Charlie held out his arm to show the bruise there, livid against his wrist. "She hurt me!" He pointed a thumb angrily at his back, indicating that he was injured there, as well.

Raising his eyebrows thoughtfully, Jack leaned forward and pulled his son's shirt up to expose his back, peeking over a shoulder to view the damage. More marks showed where a blow had obviously landed on Charlie's upper back and a broad, painful-looking contusion was centered at his low back.

Jack set his jaw, and sat back in his chair again. He finished the last of his beer, and was not surprised in the least when Sam appeared at his shoulder to take the empty beer bottle and replace it with a second full one. He took it, but sat motionless, not drinking, not speaking. He didn't trust his voice yet.

Sam chose to stand to the side, by the window, obviously discomfited by Jack's building fury. Jack saw the moment she decided to speak, and she only got out the, "Jack, I --" before his raised hand and stern look stopped her from speaking.

Jack turned to Charlie. "Do you realize ..."

When Charlie's lips parted to speak, the same hand kept Charlie's words unspoken.

"You broke into her home and she subdued you the way she's _trained _to do, the way I would, if you broke into my home. No -- scratch that." He closed his eyes for a brief second, and pointed angrily. "If you broke into _my_ home, I'd be more likely to shoot you! You're very lucky she didn't have a gun in her hand."

"Actually, Dad, she did," Charlie pointed out, rubbing the back of his head thoughtfully.

"Dammit, Charlie!" Beer forgotten on the side table, Jack stood to pace the room, placing his hands in his pockets to still them.

He recognized the marks on Charlie's body, having inflicted them on others time and time again. They were the marks left by an individual well-trained in combat, someone who knew how to inflict the least harm while wholly subduing an individual. And Jack knew how with that precise physical power, hand in hand came the ability to kill with little more than a flick of the wrist. A crushed windpipe, a broken neck -- there were a hundred ways to go. And there'd been a gun involved. There was no doubt in Jack's mind that Sam was an expert marksman. He shut off that part of his mind before images of Charlie's broken body assailed him.

Still pacing, he reached the end of the room and turned back, meeting Sam's eyes in the process.

Her voice was soft, but audible in the quiet room. "I saw he was unarmed."

Jack nodded gruffly and walked the length of the room once more. He knew her statement for what it was. It was a statement of what didn't happen because she was able to ascertain his status, and a statement as to what would have happened if an armed intruder had been the one to walk through her front door.

He reached the chair once more, and Jack sat down with an audible sigh. He cracked the top off the beer on the table and took a long swig. Twirling the bottle in his hand a little, he inspected the label in lieu of saying anything else to Charlie.

A thought crossed Jack's mind, and he smiled a half-smile. "You've had to give me bad news before, haven't you?" he asked Sam, inclining his head toward her over at the window. He gestured at her knowingly with the beer in his hand.

She smiled and let out a low laugh, closing her eyes a little in the process. "With you as my CO for eight years? What do you think?" Sam relaxed her body a little and leaned back against the window sill.

Jack returned the smile and held his bottle out in the air in a mock-toast, saying "Thanks," before taking another swig. His eyes met hers once more over the bottle and he knew she knew. Thanks for the beer, and thanks for not hurting my delinquent adult child -- much. After a few intense seconds of being lost in those blue depths, he tore his eyes away from Sam.

Jack eyed Charlie strategically. The young man sat motionless, staring at his hands, ignoring the cryptic comments and unspoken words that had filled the air around him. Pointing at his son, Jack pulled out every ounce of stern father-voice he had. "As for you. _We _will talk about this later."

Charlie head snapped up so he could narrow his eyes at his father. "How is it you always see everything as being my fault?"

"I practice. And stop looking at me like that. You're not fourteen. You lose glaring privileges once you reach the age of enlistment."

"Like you could get me to enlist," Charlie bantered with a smile.

"Well … this latest little stunt isn't proving you or your mom's point for me. A little tour through BT would do you some good." Jack pointed at Charlie, but the stern finger quickly devolved toward lassitude and began drawing small circles in the air. He took another drink from the beer in his hand and let his head drop back against the chair. The glass was chill and damp against his fingers, and he had to resist the urge to press it against his forehead to calm the growing ache behind his brow.

He knew Charlie would never join the military, but still felt a pinch of disappointment that his boy hadn't followed in his footsteps. The kid was bright. Adventurous. Could have been a flyer like his dad. Jack supposed that was where Sara's problem with the whole idea came in. Sara who'd had ninety percent of the face time with Charlie over the years, Sara who had the uninterrupted view of his growth into an adult, and Sara who had definitely hindered the coming of age process by spoiling the boy.

"Grow up," Jack murmured.

He wasn't sure if he was directing the comment at himself or at Charlie, and was surprised into a full-fledged grin at Charlie's counter-comment of, "You first."

"Get outta here," Jack instructed, his voice light, still smiling with his head leaned back against the chair. Jack was staring at the ceiling, and heard the rustle of clothing and the clink of car keys as Charlie got up to leave.

"See you back at the house later?" Charlie asked, holding the untouched beer out in front of his dad.

Jack accepted the bottle as the peace offering it was, nodded and reached out a hand to touch Charlie's shoulder as he walked by. "Stay out of trouble, eh?"

Charlie gave him a short nod of agreement and walked out, raising a hand to Sam as a goodbye. She accompanied him to the front door, and Jack almost didn't hear the apology from his son as the young man left. "Sorry I tried to punch you," came the barely audible words. Jack chuckled, amused at Charlie's act of contrition, and Sam's murmured reply was beyond his ability to overhear. Jack heard the door snick shut, and Sam returned to take Charlie's former place on the couch.

She settled in and sat quietly, idly picking at the seam on the couch arm. Jack appreciated the silence.

They sat together in comfortable quiet for a long while, and Jack's thoughts slowly went the direction he'd been avoiding for weeks. He pondered on General Jack O'Neill, the man's loss of his son, of his place as savior of the planet, and of his rise to General. Jack wondered just what kind of person that man was.

He focused on the question that had been foremost in his mind since he met Colonel Samantha Carter. Meeting her eyes across the short distance between them, he finally asked.

"Am I him?"

--

TBC

--

_AN: Thanks so much for reading. Drop me a note to let me know what you think of this latest chapter? I'm totally up for plot predictions and ideas, too. Although I do have an outline directing where the story will go (big things will happen!), I'm really just making it up as I go along at this point. I've already changed a few little things based on reviews and what the characters demand I do. So please do review! It's much appreciated._

_Sorry for any errors I didn't catch! I had to rush to get this chapter to you today. I'm working all day tomorrow and then leaving for an all-girls weekend away. So it may be mid-week before you see another chapter._


	6. Chapter 6

_The usual spoiler warning and disclaimer (no copyright infringement intended!) apply. _

_AN: Sorry it took an extra week to get this chapter to you. Life got in the way. Other than a vomiting toddler and a computer virus, most of the delay was simply due to the fact that my ability to focus has gone out the window. Someone close to me is being shipped out to Afghanistan soon, and I'm having issues coming to terms with the fact that the little boy who tagged along at my heels when I was but a girl myself, who grew up two doors down from me, whose scratches and bumps and bruises I tended, the little boy whom I have held while he cried for his mommy … will be a member of a USMC fire team. This man is now an 0311 Rifleman and will be killing "insurgents" while trying to avoid being killed himself. So while I come to grips with this, I'm just not currently able to lose myself in the writing the way I usually do. W/ Streetlights being a military-filled fic… so not helping._

_We'll see how soon my muse stops grieving. I downloaded a bunch of new music and that seems to have been a nudge in the right direction -- I was able to finish this chapter._

_So please, enjoy, and I apologize if I can't keep posting new chapters at the pace I'd been keeping before this._

_-- _

_They sat together in comfortable silence for a while, and Jack's thoughts slowly went the direction he'd been avoiding for weeks. He pondered on General Jack O'Neill, the man's loss of his son, of his place as savior of the planet, and of his rise to General. Jack wondered just what kind of person that man was._

_He focused on the question that had been foremost in his mind since he met Colonel Samantha Carter. Meeting her eyes across the short distance between them, he finally asked._

"_Am I him?"_

--

Sam studied Jack's eyes, contemplating her answer. She thought about acting ignorant by asking, _Who?_ but she knew Jack would just give her a look that said, _You know who_. His eyes were searching hers for the answer, as if he could pull it from her with the force of a stare.

Jack's posture was absurdly relaxed -- slouching in the overstuffed chair, beer in hand, head resting against the chair back. Inspecting him closer, though, Sam saw the signs that shouted "Not relaxed!" at her. The hand holding the amber glass bottle had white fingertips, his breathing was short and measured. Most telling of all, however, was the stillness. Jack's body was entirely still.

She knew a lot was riding on her answer to his question.

_Am I him?_

To Sam, Jack was Jack O'Neill. Always had been, always would be. Just having him here in proximity to her had proven that to Sam repeatedly over the course of the afternoon. He walked like Jack, talked like Jack. He paced a room and gestured angrily like Jack. And he could stare right into her soul, the same as Jack always could.

Biting the proverbial bullet, Sam spoke. "It depends on how you measure your self, your being." Jack quirked an eyebrow at her like he had something to say, but he gestured with the beer for her to continue. She took a careful breath before saying slowly, "By all rights, you are him. You have his DNA. You were born in the right universe. You lived his life for more than forty years."

"And then Charlie lived." Jack's statement was blunt, and Sam found her throat tightening from the emotion those four words brought forth in her.

She could only nod in response at first before finding her voice again. "Ba'al traveled back in time, the gate was lost, and somehow, you were able to keep your son. Your life was rewritten." Sam had to look up and away from Jack to keep a few traitorous tears from spilling over. She blinked rapidly to clear them. "And thank god, Jack, because I'd give up every second we ever had together to see you be a father again."

Only in her most secret of dreams had Sam ever imagined she'd see Jack as a father. Between the war against the Ori and her command of Atlantis, the time had never seemed right for the two of them to get married, let alone try for children. And now, for Jack to have Charlie, a full grown child with whom he'd shared a lifetime -- that image went straight to the top of Sam's list of reasons why this timeline was better for everyone than the original. Better for everyone except Sam, Daniel, and Cameron, that is.

If only the imminent Goa'uld attack wasn't hanging over their collective heads.

The whole situation shouldn't be happening -- Ba'al being able to travel back in time to change things boldly violated the Novikov Principle. Once he had traveled back and prevented SG1 from ever stepping through the Stargate, Ba'al had eliminated his need to travel back in time in the first place and so the trip could never have happened. It was a paradox, and he shouldn't have been able to pull it off without fracturing the very fabric of spacetime.

All at once, the memories came crashing down on Sam. She remembered the heavy, still air of the Tok'ra home world, that glorious crystalline city, and how impressed she'd been with the civilization's first foray into building above ground. Jack had been humming _We're Off to See the Wizard _as he met them at the gate, and insisted on calling the city on the horizon The Emerald City. Daniel had gabbed about architecture the entire way to the ceremony. They'd all been thrilled at the significance of it -- the first real Tok'ra metropolis. The Goa'uld were really and truly defeated.

The harmonious bass melody as those from the council had chanted Ba'al's crimes had certainly lulled Sam into a sense of safety. As Ba'al had grandstanded, she'd filled her senses with a feeling of satisfaction by recalling exactly how it had felt to punch the despicable Goa'uld in the face with everything she'd had -- the third and fourth knuckles of that hand still ached on days when the weather was changing.

Sam and the rest of SG1, confused by Vala's sudden absence, were still blindsided by the sudden vanishing of Teal'c, with nothing more than a whisper of air to proclaim that brutal revision of time. Sam could recall every detail of the chaos as everything and everyone around her began to succumb to entropy.

On the couch in her living room, Sam closed her eyes against the memory of Jack being stabbed in the chest -- that solid wet sound of the impact would forever be tied to the rasp of rough sand granules beneath her boots. His hands clenching and releasing spasmodically, betraying the agony of his mortal wound. Jack dying on that floor at her feet, ordering them to the gate with a last gasping breath. Jack's eyes staring unseeingly toward the high ceiling holding back the powder blue desert sky. Running for her life, afraid to look back in case she saw Jack disappear, too. Afraid to _not _look back in case each look would be the last.

A touch at her knee brought Sam back to the present and she opened her eyes to see Jack's unguarded eyes still focused on hers, his forehead lined with concern.

Sam reached out, covering the back of his broad hand with her palm, holding his wrist with her fingertips. She let the touch linger along with their shared look, enjoying the sincerity of his regard and the pulse of his heart beneath the pad of her thumb. Breathing past the raw, tight feeling in her throat, Sam searched for the words to explain her grief. Shifting her hold, she turned his hand over and settled it across her knee.

She studied his palm openly for a minute or two. Her fingers traced the lines of life written across Jack's hand. Though Sam kept her eyes cast downward during her considerations, she could feel his gaze on her face. She knew he was watching her -- still hoping for a real answer. Her thumbs carefully traced the length of each of the five fingers on Jack's hand, savoring the feel of the familiar calluses there.

Without meeting his eyes, she leaned back and moved over to the center cushion on the couch, pulling Jack's hand along with her. Wordlessly, Jack shifted his position to sit alongside her, the cushion dipping beneath his weight.

"If you imagine time is like a record or a tape," Sam began. "It's as if time began re-recording itself in nineteen-thirty-nine when the Stargate was lost. Everything was overwritten from that point on. Rerecorded. Changed." Sam explained briefly how time appeared to be plastic and malleable, and how with the right technology, someone could set forth such a chain of events as had changed their timeline. She told Jack of her experience on the Tok'ra homeworld. As the words tumbled from her lips, Sam closed her eyes against the memories, focusing on the feel of Jack's warm hand in her grasp though it only served to sharpen the painful images.

She shared her experiences with Jack -- the irony of all of the known world vanishing around her at the very moment her own existence was being disintegrated by the Stargate. Described in detail the instant her body had remollecularized on the other side, how the first cold gasp of arctic air had only served to intensify the taste of failure and loss. How her body's response to the bone-biting cold had just masked the paroxysms shaking her to the very core.

"You asked if you are him. I can't answer that. I thought I lost him that day. But it depends on your definition of self," Sam said, meeting Jack's eyes. "If you measure a person's self by his actions, by his experiences, then you simultaneously are and aren't him." Lowering her gaze, she ran a thumb gently across the base of Jack's first finger, finding the faint scar there, smooth and silvered from the passage of time. "You have some of his experiences. I know this happened when you were cleaning a fish with your uncle at the cabin. You were thirteen."

Jack nodded almost imperceptibly, his gaze transfixed on Sam's finger, which traced and re-traced the scar.

--

Jack closed his eyes as Sam's other hand traveled up his arm. It slowly drew a line up the skin of his forearm, past his elbow, and on to the soft skin at the inside of his bicep. Jack felt her tuck her gentle fingers under the short sleeve of his shirt, and he couldn't help but turn his head away when her fingertips traced the scar she somehow knew would be hidden there.

He forced out the words, "Barbed wire," and had to swallow past the bitter aftertaste they brought to his mouth.

"In Iraq," Sam finished, and Jack felt his body jolt at her knowledge. That was a story he'd shared with no one. Ever. Even the official report had been vague, stating_ methods of torture and degradation. _Nobody had expected a full and detailed recounting, and Jack had never offered one.

Turning to meet Sam's eyes, and seeing the sincerity reflected there, Jack realized that somewhere, somehow, not only had he trusted this person with his life -- he'd trusted her with the darkest parts of his soul. Overwhelmed with that knowledge, he pulled his hand from hers and stood.

Jack took a few steps but had to stop, torn, afraid that walking away now would somehow hurt Samantha. He felt uncomfortable in his own skin and couldn't stand it. He couldn't turn back to look at the expression on Sam's face. He spoke harshly before she could do anything to stop him. "Look. I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but I can't do this right now." He was angry with himself mostly, because after all she'd shared with him, he knew he was not capable of opening up to her.

Sam's voice came at once, low and quiet at his shoulder. "Can't do what?"

Surprised at her proximity, Jack lashed out with words. "Would you stop that? If you know me as well as you pretend to, you'd know I don't like to be followed around." He let out a breath in frustration as he lowered his hands and stubbornly refused to look at Sam. He didn't need to open up to her, he decided. She was already in his head.

Sam shouldered her way past Jack silently and went into the kitchen. Jack heard cupboards opening and closing and silverware clanking, and he followed as far as the doorway, hovering there, watching. She was making sandwiches -- piling roast beef on bread, spreading condiments, slicing cheese.

He watched her for a moment, admiring her economy of movement, the sway of her shoulders as she worked. His stomach growled, and Jack realized what Sam was doing. She was reading Jack like a map. She knew when he needed a beer, a look, a touch. And she knew when he needed a snack.

"What if I'm not hungry?" he asked recklessly, though his stomach rebelled loudly at the words.

Sam glanced back over her shoulder. "I can tell you haven't had lunch." In response to Jack's silence, she elaborated. "You're always edgy when you're hungry." Sam cut the first sandwich in half.

Jack stalked closer to Sam, leaning in close to her ear, saying softly, "I am not edgy." Her small startled jump satisfied him. "You're jumpy," he accused quietly, the corners of his mouth turning up with the start of a sly smile.

"I'm not jumpy." She set down the knife. "You just walk too quietly."

Jack grinned, unseen beside Sam's ear, and he saw the side of Sam's face curl up with a smile of her own.

He held his breath against the sudden urge he had to walk away. Clenching his fists, Jack tried to articulate the sentiment. "This feels too right," he said after a few quiet seconds. "It's like déjà vu … but I can't remember the first trip around." It was disconcerting for him to be around someone who knew him so well. He found himself walking on eggshells, afraid that any minute would be the one in which he said or did something unforgivable, something the other him -- the him who knew Samantha -- would have never said or done. "Is it weird for you, too?" he asked, suddenly curious.

Sam nodded in a thoughtful way, before turning to Jack, leaving the second sandwich in disarray behind her. "It's like a dream for me. I feel like Dorothy. I've lived through some incredible things, and one day I come home and no one takes it seriously. All I can do is say, 'And you were there, and you were there…' but no one believes me." Sam's eyes shone brightly with unshed tears.

Jack wasn't sure if it was the Wizard of Oz reference or the tears, but his unspoken resolve to remain detached was undone. He found himself murmuring, "I believe you," as his eyes searched her face, memorizing every detail.

Sam's eyes momentarily flickered down to Jack's lips, and he was suddenly made aware of their close proximity. They were standing chest to chest. Sam's back was at the counter and one of Sam's knees was nearly trapped between both of Jack's.

Searching her eyes, Jack made a decision, and he hoped with everything he had that it was the right one.

Leaning in, Jack kissed Sam.

The touch with his lips was hesitant at first, little more than a question. Their breaths mingling, Jack felt rather than heard Sam's words as she asked, "Are you sure?" Her fingertips lightly grazed the skin of his forearms and the muscles there tightened in response.

Jack wasn't sure if she meant, _Are you sure you believe me? _or _Are you sure you want to kiss me?_ or _Are you sure you want to be him? _but it didn't matter because the answer to all three was an emphatic _yes_.

Nodding gently, Jack pulled back a little so he could focus on her blue eyes and tried to imbue his answer with integrity.

"You know me," he said. It was a statement, not a question, and Sam nodded in agreement so he continued, "I want to know you." He leaned in slowly, intending to kiss Sam more thoroughly this time, but he found himself smiling against her lips after just a moment and had to mumble, "It's only fair. Can't let you have the upper hand all the time." He patted the counter behind Sam meaningfully. Fighting fire with food and beer just wasn't fair by his book.

Then it was Sam's turn to smile -- Jack felt it against his lips -- and so he pressed himself closer, putting a hand on the hard edge of the counter on either side of Sam, catching her close against his body. She wrapped her arms around Jack's neck, pulling the soft kiss deeper, and Jack found himself captivated. As his mouth moved against Sam's in a most delectable way, his hands roamed her body of their own accord. He discovered he had an inherent need to know her … to commit her form to memory.

From the nape of her neck to the curve of her behind, his hands wandered, savoring the way she felt in his arms. Fingertips finding the gap between t-shirt and jeans, Jack's hand delved in, taking delight in the feel of his skin on hers. The curve of her waist was perfection against his palm, and that ideal combination of softness on muscle made his breath come short. He brought his hand around to Sam's back so he could pull her body against his.

Jack found himself frozen -- couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Beneath his thumb was a wide expanse of smooth and tight skin that didn't belong on her perfect form. He'd found a substantial scar across her low back. Internally horrified at the image of such an injury inflicted on Sam's by forces of evil, Jack pulled back from Sam's lips. He watched her eyes open, and with his own he asked the question.

She understood and answered, the impatience clear in her voice. "I've been in combat for more than a decade, Jack." She smiled and it softened the words. "If you stop to feel every one of my scars … this is going to take a while," she said, the innuendo in her words clear.

Jack blinked at Sam and realized he was being offered the opportunity to explore exactly what he wanted -- to know her, all of her. Grabbing half of a sandwich in one hand, and Sam's hand in the other, he lead her upstairs.

--

Much later, sated and sleepy, Sam lay next to Jack in her bed as he trailed his hand lazily across her bare back.

In the beginning, Sam had tried to remind herself it was technically their first time together and had attempted to keep things unhurried and casual. It was Jack who had pushed the boundaries of their intimacy with his touches, his whispered questions. As he'd undressed Sam in the evening light, he had traced each and every newly revealed scar, asking her to share its story before kissing each one reverently and moving on to the next. At one point Jack had joked that he needed to have a word with her commanding officer, because he'd obviously been neglecting his duties in caring for his subordinate. The smile had turned serious, and Sam had sensed the underlying promise behind the light words.

By the time Jack had moved to join their bodies completely, Sam's body and mind had been thrumming with her need for him. Not a single inch of her skin had gone un-pleasured and Jack had even kissed away the rogue tears that had escaped Sam's grasp during the height of their passion.

And now, lying on her belly beside him, Sam realized the idle fingers on her back were now tracing a more particular pattern -- Jack had found some of the oldest of her scars, the criss-crossing faintest of silvery lines. The injuries had healed a long decade ago, and the subtle scars on her back were out of her view, so Sam often forgot they were there.

"Tell me," he whispered into her ear. "How does one find themselves being whipped in this day and age?" Jack's palm flattened itself against her back, warm and comforting.

"I was captured and sold to a Mongolian-like leader. He punished me for escaping," Sam whispered back.

"I came for you, though?" he questioned, his eyes dark in the late evening light.

Sam nodded. "You bought me back with your Beretta."

Jack let out a barking laugh and rolled onto his back, pulling Sam to him. She settled her body against his, reveling at the way they fit together so perfectly after so much had tried to force them apart.

At that moment, Sam came to the realization that there was no longer the label of _the other Jack _between them. He was _Jack _and that was all that mattered. She wasn't sure when the delineation had faded for her. She wasn't sure when it had faded for him.

The line was no longer there and Sam didn't care.

--

_Reviews would be wonderful. (I even accept anonymous ones!) It just takes a few seconds, and they SO inspire me. I've been pleasantly surprised at the response to this story, and I hope everyone is still tagging along for the ride.  
_

_Thank goodness this isn't a romance or the story would be nearing the end. As it is, we're just gearing up for some action ... it's two chapters away, I think.  
_

_And feel free to give me a poke if no new chapters arrive in the next few days. The continuing reviews are a great reminder for me to set aside quiet time to write._


	7. Chapter 7

_The usual spoiler warning is still in effect, and no, I don't own the characters. I don't make money from them either. In fact, the DVDs sure cost me a pretty penny.  
_

_AN: Bonus points for anyone who gets my reference to something in the summary within this chapter. _

_--_

The sound of the front door slamming brought Charlie to wakefulness, and he found himself stretched out on the living room couch at his Dad's place on base. Stifling a groan, he stretched and rubbed his eyes blearily, trying to rid himself of the last vestiges of sleep. He'd fallen asleep while watching TV, waiting for Jack to come home.

He glanced toward the window -- it had long been dark. There was a nearly empty pizza box on the table in the corner, and Charlie gestured to it as his dad came into the room.

"Saved you a piece."

Jack ignored the pizza slice, and simply went through the mail on the table. Silently.

Charlie winced inwardly and settled back to lay on the couch with an arm over his eyes. He waited for the lecture to start. He might not be eleven years old anymore, but his dad could still give him a dressing-down as well as ever. And this wasn't like the time Charlie had pulled up the ladder to his tree-house, leaving the littler neighbor boy to cry at the base of the tree for an afternoon.

Charlie admitted to himself that breaking into the house had been a serious misjudgment on his part.

The envelope rustling stopped, and by shifting his arm slightly, Charlie sneaked a look at his dad across the room. Jack had finished with the mail and was finishing off the slice of pepperoni pizza. The younger man decided to exploit his dad's full mouth and began to speak, knowing it would be a moment before he could be interrupted.

"Dad, I'm sorry, I should have never set foot in that house." Removing his arm from his face, Charlie tried to look sincere. "I deserved what I got," he added, rubbing his sore wrist thoughtfully. Resisting the urge to go on the defense, which never worked with his dad, he finished, "I'll never do anything like that again." Going over the words in his head, he compared them to the ones he'd rehearsed while waiting and decided that they came close enough, if slightly less eloquent.

There was only a short pause before Jack, pizza finished, was able to reply. When he did, his voice was sharp. "If you ever do anything like that again..." Stepping toward the couch, Jack lifted up Charlie's feet, pushing them out of the way and sitting in their former place on the cushion. Sighing a short sigh, he settled into the couch before waving an arm halfheartedly in the air and telling Charlie, "I'd hate to have to tell your mother she raised an idiot."

Charlie swung his legs forward and arranged himself on his end of the couch, the carpet soft under his bare toes. Flashing a quick grin, he replied, "Yeah, I wouldn't want to be there for that, either." Charlie ignored the brusque look Jack gave him out of the corner of his eye. They both knew that Charlie's mom favored her only son -- he could do little wrong in her eyes. As the two of them focused their attention toward the television, Charlie fidgeted, remote in hand.

Charlie would never admit it out loud, but that was one reason he appreciated these visits with his dad. Jack didn't pull his verbal punches. Where his mom danced around a difficult subject and liked to try to pretend certain things had never happened so she wouldn't have to discuss them, Jack would tell Charlie how it was. He felt on equal footing around his dad. The way his mom spoke down to him made him feel inferior.

The fact that Sara could give Jack a thorough ass-chewing further confused their son. Knowing that she had the ability to shriek at someone in anger just frustrated Charlie when he was never able to bring about that level of anger in her. No matter what he did or said, Sara would just sigh and walk away. Charlie had found himself escalating his behavior to new levels of extreme at times, just hoping to get a reaction out of her. Nothing ever came of it.

Finally, when Charlie was sixteen, Jack had found the half-empty bottle of tequila under the seat of his son's car. Charlie hadn't known what hit him. One minute he was grabbing his keys off the wall and heading out to visit a friend and the next he found himself pinned to the wall with a very angry father in his face. They'd had words, Jack had sold the car, and Charlie had been relegated to riding public transit for the next year while he saved up enough money to buy another.

Charlie smiled a little, remembering how mad he'd been at his dad that year. Sara hadn't had the money to replace the vehicle, so she'd been forced to go along with Jack's punishment, automatically meted out daily whether the man was present or not.

The teen quit drinking and finished high school. Not having a car until just before graduation had seriously depleted his options as far as going out went. Charlie found himself holding up a pretty good grade-point-average, and ended up taking some advanced placement classes that gave him a leg up on the majority of his classmates.

When Charlie had decided on a university to attend after graduation, Jack had quietly handed him the statement to a bank account in the younger man's name -- it contained nearly thirty thousand dollars. Stunned, Charlie had looked to his dad for an explanation. Turns out Jack had taken the money from the sale of the car and invested it, turning it into the college fund the boy's mother had never quite been able to set aside.

Charlie knew his dad had lied about where some of the money came from, but had never confronted him about it. Knowing something about the stock market and about compounding interest, the young man knew there was no way the investment firm had turned twelve or thirteen thousand dollars into thirty in just two years. He knew his dad was doing what he could to help take care of Charlie by adding some of his own money to the account. He knew it hadn't been easy growing up without a father most months of the year and figured Jack hadn't had an easy time being pulled away from his only son.

Jack and Charlie watched TV in silence for a while, and Charlie kept sneaking looks at his dad out of the corner of his eye, waiting for the real lecture to rear its ugly head. It didn't come, and the young man began to have trouble focusing on the show.

When the moment that Charlie was going to give in and start apologizing again arrived, he glanced over to his father once more. Jack noticed this time, and a look passed between the two men. It was Jack who spoke first.

"I need you to forget you met Sam."

Confused, Charlie sputtered, "What? Why? Is she mad? I didn't mean to--"

Jack cut him off with a sympathetic outstretched hand raised between them. "Nothing to do with you, Charlie." Thinking for a moment, fingertips to his forehead, Jack kept the other hand raised where it was and Charlie kept himself from speaking. "She's been, ah … mixed up with some things in the past, and she isn't supposed to have contact with people she's known _before_," Jack included himself with a gesture here, "and I'm assuming they mean families of those folks, as well." Jack gestured to Charlie.

"Is this like … witness protection?" Charlie questioned, voicing the first of a million questions swirling through his mind. He hadn't missed the odd stress his dad had placed on the word _before _a moment ago, and Charlie wondered _before what?_

Jack was nodding, and saying, "--but it's classified," when Charlie started paying attention to the conversation again. "Forget you met her," he stressed again, and Charlie nodded his agreement.

"What about you?" At Jack's questioning look, Charlie continued. "I doubt you should be getting _involved _with her right now." Charlie smirked on the inside -- he knew how to put extra meaning behind a word, too.

Jack's face went carefully blank, and he turned back to the TV before saying simply, "Not involved."

"Are too."

"Am not."

"Are too."

Jack just looked at his son one more time, and Charlie got the hint, raising his hands in front of him in mock surrender. "Okay, not involved."

Jack nodded once, and they went back to watching TV.

When the show was over, Jack hadn't offered any more information on the mysterious Sam, and Charlie was a bit too freaked out to ask. A new feeling about the situation had gathered in the back of his mind and he was having trouble shaking it. As Jack rose from the couch, gathering napkins and generally putting the house back in order before bed, Charlie noticed something that answered one question. He now knew why his dad was so protective of Sam.

As Jack left the room, Charlie pointed out loudly, "Dad, your shirt's on inside out." He hadn't been able to school his expression, and Charlie knew the smirk was as clear in his voice as it was on his face. He knew that getting dressed in the dark had side effects like inside-out clothing, and Charlie also knew Jack's shirt had been right side out in the afternoon.

His father just paused for a moment, mid-step, before continuing down the hallway without a comment.

Charlie chuckled and started flipping through channels with the remote, looking for something interesting to watch, knowing the search was futile so late at night. When he was sure Jack was out of earshot, he mumbled, "Not involved my _ass,_" and hoped his dad could handle whatever this government conspiracy would be dishing out.

--

Two weeks later, Samantha Carter was on her way back to Seattle from Canada.

Flexing her wrist, Sam pulled back on the throttle thoroughly one more time, accelerating her bike well beyond the one hundred mile per hour mark. Her blue eyes were shielded darkly behind the tinted helmet visor. Her Kawasaki ZX-6R responded perfectly as Sam shifted into fifth gear and the air screamed past her on the nearly empty highway. Smiling, she kept the RPMs up above seven thousand where the powerband would allow the engine to be most responsive, tweaking the throttle playfully just to feel the bike's angry response. Its vibrations pulsed through her body to the very core.

Though the gruff induction roar of her bike was music to her ears, Sam thumbed up the volume on the pounding song playing in the wireless headset under her helmet. She allowed the intense bass beat to calm her heart rate and drown out the ambient noise of air and exhaust.

Her breath still came fast and hard, her body taut and on edge, but Samantha quickly settled into the mindset required for controlling the kind of speed she was currently experiencing on Washington State's forested I-5 corridor. She scanned the highway as far ahead as was possible, knowing that pavement appearing a quarter mile ahead of her would be under her tires in a scant seven-point-five seconds.

Sam's body was now unconsciously and unerringly performing reactions decided upon and filed away by her higher mind as her brain quickly and simultaneously processed the newest information thrust upon it by the zooming blacktop ahead. There was no room for wayward thoughts or emotions. Any minor adjustment -- and adjustments had to be minor at this speed -- was made instinctively while her eyes watched for the unexpected to appear on the horizon and she made the next snap decision as to what she should do.

Left. Right. Left, left, right. A mere nudge of the low hand grips, the texture of the rubberized handles tacky against the palms of her leather gloves, and Sam was changing lanes at full speed -- zipping around vehicles like a ghost on the highway. She knew that by the time one became conscious her presence, she would already be gone, leaving the driver with nothing but a pounding heart and a death grip on the steering wheel.

Riding her bike was as close as Sam could come to flying without leaving the ground.

Before long, Sam found herself naturally slowing the bike as she neared the city and traffic thickened. Surreptitiously, she reached back to remove the plastic lens obscuring her license plate and lightly touched the bag behind her to make sure her cargo was still secure.

The meeting with Doctor Rodney McKay had gone well, and she now had a working power source for the device she was building. Feeling a brief pain of regret for having to deceive the man with whom she'd once worked, Sam just reminded herself of how arrogant and condescending this Rodney still was. He was as bad as he'd ever been on his first working visits to the SGC -- as Sam remembered, her regret soon faded.

Sam had been able to remember enough personal details about her former colleague to convince him that Sam had been a college friend sent by his sister, Jeannie. She'd known less about Jeannie and had been nervous about pulling off the deception, but predictably, Rodney asked few questions about his baby sister. In fact, just calling Rodney "Meredith" when they met had pretty much done the job -- he had been prepared to pretend Jeannie didn't exist and instead began asking questions about Sam.

"You know you look a lot like that dead astronaut?" he'd asked, pointing out that he meant it as a compliment.

Sam had just nodded and adjusted her glasses self-consciously, changing the subject back to the worktable in front of them. Rodney's lab was cramped and Sam had soon found herself feeling uncomfortable being stuck in such close quarters with the scientist. She'd honestly forgotten how lecherous and condescending he had once been. Years of working with a team had tempered those qualities by the time she'd arrived to lead Atlantis.

Atlantis' Rodney wouldn't have asked her if she had wasted her life having children like his sister before clucking his tongue at her patronizingly and miming and hourglass with his hands while saying, "Of _course _not, what am I thinking? With a body like that? Mmph." The hip roll he'd done while miming her curves had almost --_ almost _-- caused Sam to scrap the project and just leave, but she had contained her disgust and irritation and continued on. In the name of saving the planet.

The negotiations had been a delicate balance. Sam had to try to attain the right parts without cluing Rodney in that they were very important to her, because then he would have been curious as to exactly _why _the particular item was leaving his lab if it could be used for something useful. But mostly, Rodney had seemed worried someone would make more money than him on whatever project it was that Sam was leading. She'd hinted at a high school honors class project, and he had been satisfied that Sam's obscure project would lead nowhere.

In the end, Rodney McKay had come through for her, showing her how to build a power source with the capabilities of capacitance she needed. It was something he'd been working on, he admitted, as a possible battery for an electric vehicle. Rodney was set to make millions now that everyone was trying to go "green." The only reason he had parted with this particular piece of electrical engineering was that it useless for his cause and useless for most things due to how quickly the metallic capacitors discharged their electrical charge.

"Some hair-for-brains lab assistant assembled the circuitry on this with metallic nanotubes instead of semiconducting ones. The batch he was supervising went to hell as soon as I left the room, apparently." Rodney had let out a huff of air in dissatisfaction. "The angle of roll was _all _wrong and they ended up being metallic. Metallic!" At Sam's nod of understanding here, Rodney had continued, "And the diameter… well I'm not even going to get into how wrong that was. These nonotubes might as well be made of -- of _stupid _instead of carbon."

The nanotechnology might have been unsuitable for Rodney's intended application, but it was just right for what Sam had planned. If she were to swap out the ultracapacitors in her device for the ones made of the metallic carbon nanotubes, the capacity for the battery to hold charge would increase right along with the surface area of the electrodes.

That combined with the nickel oxyhydroxide matrices of the primary battery, the weapon would be able to produce short bursts of extremely high current. Perfect for taking out a Goa'uld.

So Sam had turned down Rodney's invitation to dinner -- and the 'possibly more' he'd emphasized with an eyebrow waggle -- and instead rode straight through the night to get back to Seattle and Jack.

Exiting the highway on her bike, Sam felt the first twinges of anticipation. She hadn't seen Jack in days, and today was the day that she needed to let him in on her plans for the weekend.

It was time for her to infiltrate Seth's compound.

--

"No, absolutely not!" Jack's response to Sam's 'plan' was quick and visceral. No way was he letting her go unescorted into a Goa'uld-led cult compound. No way, no how.

"But Jack --"

"No."

Sam sighed, obviously frustrated with him, and Jack was thankful for the eight years he had spent as her commanding officer even if he couldn't remember it. It seemed because of it that Sam still hesitated to get in a shouting match with him and Jack felt he still had a chance in the argument with her.

That was, until he noticed the determined and calculating look in Sam's eye.

Jack averted his gaze from Sam, instead inspecting the rest of her small office in the basement of the Elliot Bay Book Company. As he'd found out, she worked there four days a week, sometimes balancing the accounts, but more often doing research on sales trends, trying to predict which books would be the next good addition to their shelves. Accounting and statistics work was well beneath her, and Jack could see it reflected in the way she carried herself in the drab space.

The windowless room was quiet, with only the occasional clatter from the far away café filtering through the heavy gray door. Still avoiding Sam's eye, Jack stood up and paced the length of the small room, picking up a random book to flip through.

Sam's voice, when it came, was soft. "Jack. I can do this. You know you wouldn't be of any help on the inside." She reached out and rested a hand on the back of his shoulder. "No one would be." Her palm was warm against the cotton of his shirt, and he felt his defenses slipping.

Sam had explained the issue of the nishta to him, how it worked by wiping a person's mind clear and allowing for suggestion. The perfect biological weapon for someone wanting to build and maintain a cult of followers. Not so good for folks trying to infiltrate the compound. Jack still had a hard time accepting that it was so foolproof, that it could work so well. He'd had specialized training to resist mind control and torture -- and had the unwelcome opportunity to practice those hard-earned lessons in the field -- and he still hoped that Sam was somehow wrong about the nishta's power.

Turning to look at her again, seeing the earnestness in her regard, he realized that was probably wishful thinking. She was the one with the Goa'uld experience and he was going to have to trust her.

Sitting down and wiping a frustrated hand across his face, Jack sighed his acquiescence. "Tell me again."

And so she did.

--

Jack stayed up late that night, making preparations and avoiding sleep. He knew a full eight hours would only dull his reaction time and so he had plenty of time to think while he packed.

Weaponry, surveillance equipment, spare clothing; Jack threw it all into his big black duffel bag. The thick canvas of the bag was unwieldy between his fingertips and he had to be rough with the zipper to get the metal closure to work properly.

When Charlie returned home sometime after midnight, Jack heard him pause at the end of the hallway -- Jack realized the young man must have noticed the unusually late light coming from his dad's room. Jack could hear Charlie's footsteps coming down the hallway, but the steps stopped short of entering the room when Charlie saw the bag packed in the middle of the bed.

"Going somewhere?" he asked, his tone expressing a little surprise.

Jack just nodded and gestured for Charlie to head back out to the darkened living room, kicking the now empty gun case back under the bed. Neither of them bothered with a light, and Charlie seemed to catch on to Jack's somber mood right away.

"They're deploying you already, aren't they? They can't do that --"

"Hey," Jack cut off the rant before it started. Charlie was right that it was usually military duty that separated them most of the time, but Jack wasn't able to blame that now. "Not shipping out." He sighed and went over to the window, resting his elbows on the sill and staring out at the night sky. He tried to keep his voice light. "I have to go on a bit of a mission -- but it's local. I'll be back in a couple days, tops."

He could feel Charlie staring at the back of his head. Jack swallowed and went on. "I should be back Monday. … Thing is, if I'm _not…_" and he paused to clear his throat because this needed to be said, "I need you to do me a favor and stop by the base to let them know I'm not going to be in." Keeping his elbows on the windowsill, the smooth wood cool against his skin, Jack turned his head to look at Charlie.

His son stood stock still, arms crossed, and Jack could tell he was reading between the lines and that what Jack _wasn't _saying was coming through loud and clear.

Charlie shook off a bit of the stillness and turned toward the kitchen. Jack followed. As Charlie fumbled through the fridge, ostensibly for something to eat, Jack stood at the doorway, leaning, waiting for his son to say something. He could see the tension in the young man's shoulders, and knew it was just a matter of time.

The fridge door finally slammed shut, rattling everything inside the fridge loudly. Charlie turned around, empty handed -- his eyes full of anger. "And what do I tell them, huh? If you're not back by Monday ... What then? Will you be back at all? 'Cause, dad, unless I'm missing something, the military is usually well aware of all your little _missions. _Your gun case upstairs looked _empty _to me_. _And now you're talking about not coming back." Charlie's eyes searched his, as if he were hoping to see a reasonable explanation written there, and Jack's heart hurt to know that it wasn't. "Tell me you're coming back," his son whispered.

Jack met his eyes intently, and said the only thing that came to mind he knew wouldn't be a lie. "I'll do my best." Before Charlie could say another word, Jack held up a hand. "And if I don't come back by Monday, and you haven't heard from me to say otherwise," Jack stepped forward and reached into the drawer next to the fridge, and used a red marker to draw three numbers on the fridge. Five. Fifteen. Twenty-three. "You will need to get into the safe. There is a letter there that will explain everything. Get that information to the base for me so they can send some backup." Jack knew if that happened, he'd most likely be looking at a court marshal, but whatever. Better to be alive to enjoy it. "Got that?" he asked Charlie.

His son, looking stunned, simply nodded and mumbled, "Got it." His eyes hadn't left the three red digits, bright against the white refrigerator. "Monday." Charlie's shaken expression troubled Jack.

He pulled the young man into one of their rare hugs, and it took Charlie a few surprised seconds to bring his arms around his dad. Jack patted his son's back firmly a few times and tucked his face against the side of Charlie's head for a brief moment -- quietly inhaling the underlying scent that accompanied all children regardless of age -- that calming smell that all parents have memorized within hours of their child's birth.

He was doing this for Charlie, and he was going to come home.

--

TBC

--

_AN: Firstly, I'd like to apologize for making Rodney such an ass. But let's face it, he is one. If you haven't seen his first appearance on SG1 (I think it was s5 ep15), you should check it out. He was a serious ass. And got time in Siberia to think about being nicer in the future. So in this timeline, yep, he never learned that lesson and is STILL a royal, lecherous ass._

_Secondly: And so the action begins. Seven chapters just to get to the main event. Sheesh! Hope you're liking the characters so far. Also, on that note, I want to remind you about the warning given at the beginning of chapter five.  
_

_And thirdly: does anyone get the bonus points?  
_

_Off I go to work on the next chapter. If anyone feels like poking at me in real time, I now have a twitter account. Follow me at twitterdotcomslash**chickieleighc**_


	8. Chapter 8

_The usual disclaimers and spoiler warning are in effect. Also a** new warning**: (let me try to do this without being spoilery) This chapter can be a little triggering for some. If you think that may be you, perhaps it should be skipped._

_ANs: No one got the bonus points from the previous chapter. The reference was to Sam's bike, the _Kawasaki ZX-6R _... also commonly known as the _"Ninja." _Hah. _

_A million apologies for the delay. This chapter refused to write itself like all the others did. I spent a LOT of time staring at the screen blankly this time. (Usually scenes write themselves in my head and it's just up to me to find screen time in which to quickly write them all down.) Judicious application to my ears of Airborne Toxic Event, Gary Jules and Muse helped, though. Wish I'd thought of it sooner. _;)

_Also, after being told repeatedly that this fic is way better than the summary, I've tweaked the description._

_Enjoy._

--

Jack felt strangely nervous as he escorted Sam through the underground tunnels leading to Seth's lair. Normally he had an innate ability to wipe his emotions clean, at least on a temporary basis, but this was no ordinary mission -- today he was being escorted into the unknown. He and Sam had driven north from Seattle in the early morning, arriving in the remote area under the cover of darkness. Sam had unerringly led them to the metal grate on the ground in the middle of a grove of green trees.

Slinking through the damp, dim tunnels, Jack once again worked to push his loathing of the unfamiliar aside. He was three steps ahead of Sam, moving carefully, knees bent, his weapon at the ready. He was still pacing his strides. Nine-hundred-eighty-three would equal one click at a walk, they'd already walked nine-hundred-seventy-six, and Jack unconsciously noted that if he were running back to the entrance in the blackness, it would be more like nine-hundred-and-four.

Uneasy, Jack fingered the safety on his M9 sidearm once more, assuring himself the Beretta was ready to fire. The metal had warmed to his hands and the familiar slick surface settled his nerves. The weight of the AR-15 assault rifle slung loosely across his back further grounded Jack, despite it being the civilian version of his old friend the M16, and only capable of firing one shot per pull of the trigger.

"We're here."

Sam's words were soft, but they stopped Jack in his tracks as he rounded the corner. The tension was running high in his body. He gazed at the large metal door looming before them, surreptitiously studying Sam's profile as she too stared at the austere metal. Her eyes were alert -- alight with a nervous energy Jack knew all too well. Her eyes met his, and he had the sudden urge to press his palm to her flushed cheek to see if Sam felt as vibrant as she looked.

"Jack?" Sam asked, startling Jack from his reverie. His considerations had been observed and Sam's head tilted to the side for a moment as she searched Jack's shadowed eyes with her own. Jack was glad to have the darkness as a cover for his restlessness. "How are you?" she asked.

How was he? He felt nervous, but nervous was normal. The day he stopped feeling the bite of fear before a mission would be the day he ended up coming home in a body bag. But beyond the apprehension, Jack felt uncertain. Sending a comrade into a dangerous situation wasn't anything new. Men would become resentful working for a CO who stole all the glory for himself. He'd overheard enough quietly-told stories about fragged commanding officers in during Vietnam to not take his men's wants and needs seriously -- even when their needs were to go into a dangerous situation without his accompaniment. However, Jack could honestly say he'd never sent a woman in, alone, to do what Jack felt was a man's job.

He sighed and glibly answered Sam's question. "Peachy." His voice was curt but quiet. There was a reason why a few jobs in the Air Force were still off limits to women, he decided. Jack no longer wanted to contemplate how he was feeling about sending a woman he was coming to care about into a hostile combat position. With the tilt of his head, he gestured for Sam to take point, taking two steps back. He was unsurprised at her immediate acquiescence to his command.

She eyed him as she moved into position, reaching out with a hand to place a light touch at his arm, straightening her spine and moving back into a professional demeanor almost instantly once the reassurance had been delivered. Jack reminded himself once again that this wasn't her first trip out into the field. She was no member of a baby flight, needing constant supervision and direction; she was a commissioned officer, an O6 like himself, and if all was right with the world she would still have birds on her uniform like the ones pinned to his blues in the garment bag back home.

They moved forward simultaneously. After her only glance back at which Jack assured her with his stance that he had her six, Samantha slowly pulled open the hatch-like opening to reveal a round and barren concrete room.

It was just as she had previously recounted to Jack -- featureless, cold and gray. Sam swept the room with her weapon from the passageway before taking a cautious step into the doorway.

After a cursory check of the corridor behind him, Jack focused his attention on Sam once more just in time to see her expression falter as she deliberately applied pressure to the safety of her handgun with her thumb. A click sounded and after a quick flip of the wrist she was holding her gun by the barrel and Jack was staring into uncertain but determined blue eyes. She was going in unarmed, and it was clear the seasoned officer was uncomfortable with the idea. Jack didn't like it either.

"Article ninety-nine doesn't apply here, Carter," he joked quietly, to put her at ease. Jack didn't have the UCMJ memorized by any means, but he was fairly certain there was a line or two in there about surrendering oneself and ones arms before the enemy. He eyed the weapon in Sam's hand as she offered it to him but had trouble willing himself to take it.

Sam rewarded him with a wry smile. "Doesn't mean it feels any less like a surrender, sir," she replied. Sam's eyes closed briefly as she corrected herself. "Jack."

Jack's eyes snapped back to an apologetic gaze. Somewhere in the past twenty-four hours they'd slipped into a sort of military ease -- it was obvious to Jack that they'd spent years in combat together -- and he understood why Sam's counterfeit surrender would make her feel uneasy though she no longer fell under the jurisdiction of the UCMJ.

Jack secured and holstered his gun and reached out to take Sam's. After thumbing off the safety, Jack braced his palm against the back of the textured metal grip and used his left hand to pinch the slide for a press-check, pulling back just far enough to catch a glimpse of the familiar copper casing of the chambered round. The lingering warmth in the metal grip from Sam's hands seeped into Jack's palm, confronting him with the fact that her life would soon be out of his hands. Shaken, he rocked back on his heels and turned partially away to focus on the weapon for a moment more while trying to detach himself from the situation.

The gun was loaded and ready, and Jack was still powerless to engage the opposing forces.

Sam's movement caught his eye, and Jack set his jaw and watched her take a step into the nondescript room. He shouldn't be okay with this. He _wasn't _okay with this, but Sam had assured him it was the only way. She'd spouted information about force shields and kinetic energy and Jack had been resigned to the fact that going in shooting was not a viable option.

That didn't mean he would like it.

Turning to Jack and holding his eyes with her own, Sam took a measured step backwards. Then one more. Jack reached up to his ear, clicking on the earpiece there.

Sam's next words were whisper soft but came to Jack loud and clear -- partially due to the acoustics of bowed concrete walls behind her, but mostly due to the tiny mic hidden on Sam's person. "See you on the other side."

Jack gave a brusque nod and Sam took the final few steps backward, bringing her to the center of the room. A loud and strange metallic whine sounded, and Sam glanced up. Her eyes closed as she was surrounded by the giant metallic rings.

The room filled with a sweeping, bright-white light and Jack took an involuntary stumbling step backward.

When the light cleared… Sam was gone.

--

As the transport rings had descended around Samantha, her body had begun to tingle with the almost imperceptible electric hum that naquadah-enhanced technology always brought on due to her unique physiology. She had taken a few milliseconds to reflect on the previously unrealized fact that somewhere along the years the familiar shiver of awareness had become a comfort -- and that it had been missed. Shortly thereafter, as expected, Sam's body had been de-mollecularized and transferred up to the building above.

Her senses were temporarily overcome by the feral surge of adrenaline that always flooded her body at the reassembly of her molecular structure -- a result of the momentarily incomplete sympathetic nervous system panicking for the few milliseconds it took for the remollecularization to complete. Taking a deep breath, Sam settled her mind on her racing heart rhythm as the rings vanished back into the floor and her eyes were able to focus on the scene before her.

At the front of the large room, in an ornate thone-like chair raised up on a dais, sat Seth the Goa'uld. He looked much as Sam remembered. His gaze was steely, though the long, dark hair pulled tightly back from his face lent an additional harshness to the expression. Seth was quite still, allowing his eyes to employ an appraising, malingering look that Sam felt clear down to her toes. She had trouble standing still under that kind of scrutiny. Sam swallowed and found herself involuntarily shifting her eyes from his face.

Members of Seth's cult hovered at the periphery of the room, but Sam could not bring herself to acknowledge them beyond a few furtive glances. Seth held her attention. He was the danger.

Memories from her first infiltration of Seth's lair were fuzzy at best.

She pushed away the recollection of that final, vivid standoff in the escape tunnels below Seth's compound, the standoff in which she'd wielded a ribbon-device, in which she'd _killed _with it. Staring now at the identical golden device on Seth's hand before her, as full comprehension of just how demanding this mission could prove to be washed over Samantha, she couldn't help but wonder if her plan was lacking. She knew firsthand how much power the ribbon device could summon. Her hand twitched at her side, already missing the oiled metal grip of a familiar weapon.

Unwillingly, she recalled the unyielding wave of pressurized energy she'd had to put forth in her desperate attempt to prevent Seth from killing her and her team and making his escape. How the blast had reflected from the stone surfaces back at her body, the reverberations resonating deep in her diaphragm, knocking the breath from her. The way the low background tingle of naquadah in her nerves had developed into an adrenaline-like burn, calling to her physiology in a way she'd never felt before.

She had been left feeling stunned and somehow bereft after the second all-encompassing blast from her borrowed golden weapon. Turning away from Seth's broken body to look into the eyes of her waiting team -- _"You killed him!" _someone had stuttered_ ­_-- she'd seen the awe in their eyes. The burn in her body had turned into an insistent hum, screaming quietly in the back of her mind. The power … what incredible power. What she could _do _with that power.

For one disorienting moment, she had known what it felt like to be Goa'uld. Tasted sheer, raw, bitter power.

"_Hail Dorothy," _Jack had murmured, somehow seeing the desire in her eyes. His words had broken the spell, and Sam had darted away to pull the ribbon device from her shaking fingers. Dropping it from her fumbling fingers, she'd had to kneel in the dirt, shaking, to wait for her legs to support herself again.

On his dais, Seth raised his gold-clad hand and Sam knew exactly what he wanted from her.

Once again, Sam found herself kneeling on shaking legs. Her only consolation was that her fear did not seem out of place here in this iniquitous place. Seth would expect it. Indeed, he looked pleased.

Seth smiled the overconfident and commanding smirk only the Goa'uld could truly pull off. "Welcome," he said in the distorted bass voice of his kind. "I wasn't expecting any visitors, but you are welcome to join us. There is always room for one more." His eyes flashed.

With the wave of a gold-swathed hand, the scepters before Seth began to spew their mist of emerald-hued nishta. Seth's smile widened, and Sam had to brace her body against her instinctual urge to turn and run. Instead, she settled her knees more firmly against the floor as the nishta reached her and began its incursion. Breathing tentatively, she once again found the vapor to be cool against her nostrils for all that it smelled of scorched iron and ozone. The tang of metal was on her tongue and a second, involuntary breath had Sam gasping before she recognized it for the fear it was.

An icy chill began to spread from her core and Sam knew the nishta had found its way from her lungs into her circulatory system -- it would be mere moments before the microscopic weapon crossed the blood-brain barrier.

She met Seth's intense gaze with one of her own, forcing her eyes wide in mock realization before breaking the gaze and allowing her body to fall in a boneless heap on the floor. She forced her eyes to drift closed. The polished wood was cool against her cheek but did nothing to assuage the cold sweat blooming on her forehead and neck.

Laughter from Seth rang in Sam's ears and she took small measured breaths, constraining her fear, pushing it away and trying to empty her mind as the nishta would have done. She allowed her head to loll back as multiple hands grasped her firmly by the arms and pulled her away, her boot heels squeaking on the highly polished floor.

Sam took care to remain limp and unresponsive the entire way. She knew the nishta would have left her unconscious for a few minutes -- though she wasn't sure exactly how long to keep up the ruse. Or what to do or say when she came awake. Sam's heart thumped in apprehension, and her fingertips began to tingle from lack of circulation as she was dragged through hallway after hallway.

The squeak of shoes on smooth wood floors soon turned to a scuff against carpet and Sam's sagging form was carefully lowed to the floor. No words were spoken, and Sam could not tell with how many people she shared the room, though she heard more than one quiet sigh. Sam lay on the floor, finding it cushioned and soft, and did her best to wait motionless in the silence.

The room was cool, and the tiny hairs on Sam's body raised, though not entirely from the chill.

Seconds later, she felt a gentle touch at her cheek. A light caress that in another world would be gentle enough to be soothing; it was suddenly tempered by the addition of more hands, pulling at her clothes.

Before Sam could even process the thought, her clothing was being removed. It happened too quickly for her to be horrified.

Shoes and socks went first, deft fingers unbuckled her pants, and another pair of hand tugged her shirt up over her head. As the hands turned her to her side to unclasp her bra, plush carpeting pressed gently against Sam's cheek.

Her body settled back into its prone position when released, and Sam had to focus her mind solely on her breathing as her bra was lifted from her body, leaving her breasts cold and exposed to all those present. Someone's thumbs hooked around that final, critical article of clothing and tugged the elastic down over her hips, soft fingers trailing down her thighs as her underwear were pulled downward before being removed entirely.

Her body naked as the day she was born, Sam's mind rebelled. _This isn't happening, _it called desperately, demanding she open her eyes and fight. Lying on the floor naked and unresisting went against every instinct she had as a soldier.

The Military Code of Conduct flashed through her mind and she was surprised to find how easily the words came after so much time.

_I will never surrender of my own free will… If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available._

Stripped and at the mercy of the enemy, Sam took short, measured breaths to calm her fight or flight response. The adrenaline coursing through her body erased all icy reminders of the nishta in its fiery wake. Despite her efforts, she became aware of her heartbeat thumping faster and harder until its beat pulsed powerfully in her head and hands and feet.

_Fight. _

Sam listened but still could not tell in the silence how many of Seth's acolytes surrounded her. Muffled footsteps approached. '_One,_' she counted silently to calm herself, and then, '_Two,_' as she heard a hushed whisper to her other side. Sam nearly flinched as a third silent person placed a hand firmly on her forehead. Sam used every ounce of restraint she had to prevent herself from pulling away and exposing the fact that she wasn't truly unconscious.

"Soon," came another veiled whisper from beside her, and a cool sheet was drawn up over Sam, coming to rest at her shoulders.

Her relief at being covered was palpable, and Sam couldn't help but swallow as her emotions threatened to overwhelm her. The person's broad and masculine-feeling hand remained on her forehead, and before long the individual shifted his weight until a knee was thrown over Sam's torso. When the heavy weight of a body straddling hers came to settle firmly upon her -- effectively trapping her arms -- Sam decided the time had come to awaken.

She opened her eyes and was confronted with unfamiliar vivid-green eyes hovering just above hers. The man's hand shifted to cup one cheek and was joined by its partner on the other side of her face, stilling her instinctive recoil.

He smiled broadly, held her eyes with his own, and began to chant. "Seth is life. Seth is happiness. Seth is almighty." His voice was rough with emotion.

When her captor reached the refrain for the third time, his voice was joined with fresh, joyous ones.

"_Seth is life, Seth is happiness, Seth is almighty."_

All eyes were on her, and Sam realized what was wanted of her. Sam joined in, raising her faltering voice to carry with the others.

"_Seth is life, Seth is happiness, Seth is almighty!"_

The weight was lifted from her chest, and she chanted with the group one more time, their voices growing more excited by the moment.

"_Seth is LIFE, Seth is HAPPINESS, Seth is ALMIGHTY!"_

--

TBC

--

_Thanks to everyone for reviewing so far. I've been so thrilled with your response to my little story! I can't wait to show you where it's going. I have tried to respond to all of the signed reviews individually (hope I haven't missed anyone!) and thanks to those who take the time to leave an anonymous review, as well. I really appreciate the feedback._

_I also apologize for any typos or grammatical errors in this chapter. Blame the drugs! The decongestants, that is. I just proofed the chapter while on some heavy-duty cold medicine. This virus is kicking my butt…_


	9. Chapter 9

_Same disclaimers and warnings apply. I would also like to apologize in advance for any and all remarks that may be defamatory towards individuals of the opposite sex or of other nationalities by the character of Jack O'Neill. Please hold any and all such comments against the character, Jack O'Neill, and not against the author, Sapphtastic. I have it on good authority that Sapphtastic is a wonderfully open-minded and unbiased gal. _;)_ Jack is just jaded…_

_AN: I want to thank everyone for their well wishes. More than two weeks later, I'm finally feeling better -- it only took four separate prescriptions to get here. Yay for inhaled corticosteroids!_

_On with the show…_

_--_

_Sam opened her eyes and was confronted with unfamiliar, vivid-green eyes hovering just above hers. The man's hand shifted to cup one cheek and was joined by its partner on the other side of her face, stilling her instinctive recoil. _

_He smiled broadly, held her eyes with his own, and began to chant. "Seth is life. Seth is happiness. Seth is almighty." His voice was rough with emotion._

_When her captor reached the refrain for the third time, his voice was joined with fresh, joyous ones._

"Seth is life, Seth is happiness, Seth is almighty."

_All eyes were on her, and Sam realized what was wanted of her. Sam joined in, raising her faltering voice to carry with the others._

"Seth is life, Seth is happiness, Seth is almighty!"

_The weight was lifted from her chest, and she chanted with the group one more time, their voices growing more excited by the moment._

"Seth is LIFE, Seth is HAPPINESS, Seth is ALMIGHTY!"

--

Several hours later, Sam finally found herself unaccompanied. She had been left alone in a small but bright bedroom near the rear of Seth's complex, ostensibly to rest, and Sam had been surprised by her actual need of that breather. She pulled the blankets up higher upon her shoulder, closed her eyes, and focused on the warmth of the sun on her face.

After her "brainwashing," Seth's acolytes had pulled Sam to her feet in their creepy and bastardized version of a group hug, each of the half-dozen people in the room straining to place a hand upon her body. Sam had closed her ears to the mumbled prayers and whispers while clinging to the thin sheet like a lifeline, trying to maintain a sense of dignity among those who had obviously lost all sense of life and self.

Soon after had come the rite of purification.

Sam's brow wrinkled involuntarily as she tried to push away her recollection of the ritual. The purification ceremony was when Sam had discovered that there was indeed an order to Seth's fanatical followers. She'd been escorted by two of Seth's men into the deep basement of the large house -- at least three full levels below grade -- to arrive at a hot and heady steam room. The heat in the room had been searing as steam wafted from nozzles along the wall; the entire space was lit only by the light which had come from a single red bulb hanging from the ceiling.

As Sam lay resting, her memory of the scene continued unabated, aided by the similarly red glow of the sunlight through Sam's eyelids.

She had been divested of the sheet she'd wrapped toga-like around her body, and the two male servants of Seth had quickly joined her in nakedness. Sam had closed her eyes as they'd stripped, trying to push down the alarm rising in her chest in order to slow her panicked breaths.

Her heart clenched at the memory of how _wrong _it had been, the men's rough hands scrubbing her sweaty body amid the mist and steam. The cloths they used had been rough and Sam had soon found her skin red and raw to the touch.

When she'd opened her eyes to try to separate herself from the forceful but sexless touches, she had finally seen for herself what Seth had taken from his most highly-trusted male followers. There had not been a speck of hair upon their pale forms and their bodies had a _smoothness _at the junction of their thighs that was unlike any other man she'd seen.

Eunuchs. Seth had turned them into eunuchs. The visual had been horrifyingly unbearable.

And so Sam had come to the realization as to why these two men had been entrusted with a nude and helpless new acolyte. Having had the sources of their manhood removed, the eunuchs were asexual beings; with the absence of testicles there could be no testosterone in their bodies at all. No testosterone, no aggression -- all of the baser human sexual urges would be gone.

Seth's highest-ranked male followers were the perfect slaves.

With Sam's comprehension that some, if not all, of Seth's male acolytes were eunuchs had come the sorrow. No matter how successful this mission was, no matter how many of them were released from the bonds of nishta, they could never go back out into the world whole. Her throat had tightened with the emotion of that insight. Sam had turned away to compose herself and her captors had simply continued with her cleansing, entirely unaware of her internal struggle on their behalf.

Sam had been declared Clean after a bracing dunk into a cold, herbal-scented pool of water in the next room. She'd been given a robe, and had been brought back upstairs into the light and was assigned a small space of her own in which to rest and contemplate her service to her new god.

On the small bed, Sam clenched her hands to still their shaking.

Gathering herself in the still room, she swallowed and brought forth a quiet voice. "Walker-One do you read?"

Distorted and low, Jack's reply came quickly in the form of a muffled curse and Sam smiled in spite of herself. Her contact after so many hours of radio silence had obviously startled Jack. Mindful of radio protocol, he corrected himself in the next breath. _"Roger, we read you loud and clear. Go ahead."_

Sam filled him in with a low voice. "Well, I'm in one piece, cleansed and purified as a bonus."

--

"Squeaky clean, eh?" Jack quipped. He was relieved to hear Sam's voice. Aside from a short session of chanting, Jack hadn't heard so much as a whisper over the radio and had been feeling concerned that Sam had been wrong about her immunity to the nishta.

Sam responded quietly. _"Yep, I'm all clean."_ There was an edge to her voice that Jack wasn't sure he liked. _"Not sure I want to go through that again."_

Jack winced. "Well we'll just make sure you don't have to," he replied, imbuing his voice with a certainty he didn't feel. He really wasn't loving the isolation of his position outside the compound. There were walls and armed guards between himself and Samantha and he doubted his ability to do a damned thing for her if worse came to worst.

He rubbed his hand across his face in frustration.

Sam was still silent on the other end of the radio, and Jack let her be. The tiny transmitter broadcast only Sam's voice due to its location -- attached to one of her molar teeth inside her mouth -- so he could not hear if anyone was in the room with Sam. Despite that limitation, the tiny radio was one of the newest and greatest pieces of tech coming from the CIA these days, and Jack was grateful he had been able to tactically acquire one for this mission.

The miniature radio was an innovation in stealth. It worked on Sam's end by sending Jack's voice to her ear in the form of vibrations through her teeth, which traveled into her jawbone and on to the small bones in her ear -- externally soundless and very difficult for the enemy to locate or remove.

Sam's voice finally came again, loudly this time. _"Of course I am."_

Having not asked her a question, Jack recognized the fact that Sam was speaking to one of Seth's folks and waited.

"_Standby," _came her whispered response after a few long seconds. _"Be prepared to move on my signal. Over."_

"Wilco. Out."

Jack went back to readying himself for the infiltration. Rising from the ground where he'd been sitting for the past few hours, he shouldered his pack and took a glance back over his shoulder to be sure the entrance to the underground tunnels was obscured from sight. Satisfied with its cover, he went on his way.

After a few minutes, more chanting came over the radio. Sam's utterances were sharp and intense. It sent shivers down Jack's spine to listen to her zoning out in chanted mock-worship of Seth, so he thumbed the volume down on his radio until her voice was low enough to put at the back of his mind.

Approximately two kilometers away was the point to which Sam had directed him. It was just as she'd described. Here the metal fence ran into the trees, giving Jack hidden access to the barrier. Pushing through ever-increasing brush and bushes, he made his way to the cast iron fence.

Jack dumped his pack to the ground and located two short lengths of flexible linear shaped charges. Placing one near the top of the fence and one about a foot from the bottom, he quickly strapped them to the black metal bars, donned his safety glasses, and stepped back while taking the trailing wires with him. One quick connect to a battery pack and a click of the switch later, there was the smallest of explosions at the fence and five of the bars dropped to the ground with a clatter.

Grabbing his pack, Jack stepped through and used black strapping tape to replace the metal bars in case anyone came to investigate the noise. He doubted they would. It wasn't uncommon to hear small arms fire in this kind of rural area via hunters and target shooters, and Jack's low-powered cutting charge hadn't been much louder.

Jack moved in toward the compound carefully, his boots softly crunching over dry leaves, knowing he was nearly invisible in his camouflage as long as he walked low and slow. Step after step brought him closer to his goal until he was within viewing distance.

A low wall of bushes was all that stood between him and Seth's compound. Crawling forward on knees and elbows, Jack parted the greenery, binoculars in hand, and saw for himself what he was up against.

Mentally dismissing most of the brutish guards hauling AKs, Jack spent considerable time watching all of the places a sniper could hide before finally spotting the killer he'd sensed was there. The behavior of the other guards had given the man's position away. They'd all been watching the open spaces surrounding the complex, but not one of them had a spotting scope or binoculars with which to scan the occluded edge of the tree line like O'Neill knew good soldiers would.

The sniper didn't surprise him. Jack had come to expect the unexpected and would never again move in on any mission without first confirming any and all intel himself. That had earned him a good reputation as a commanding officer, but more, it had prevented any more missions from turning into the cluster-fuck he gone fallen into with his first run into East Germany.

An unexpected sniper on the roof had taken out the colonel in command of that mission and the Krauts had had a field day picking off the remainder of the Special Tactics Team. What had started out as a simple extraction had turned into a bloodbath as one by one they had all fallen in front of Captain Jack O'Neill.

The gurgle in John's throat as the dying commander and friend had begged Jack to _take care of Barbara _still haunted Jack's dreams, as did the reflection of the gray sky in the man's sightless eyes.

With the blood of his commander still on his hands, Jack had dragged the only other living member of his team, an injured Captain Kowalski, three miles through the forest to reach the rendezvous point -- forever cementing their future friendship, and warranting O'Neill his first of many commendations.

Kowalski had returned the life-saving favor at least twice over the years. The two men were friends as well as comrades, and were inseparable. Jack's own son was named after the man.

Charlie.

Jack held the image of his son in his mind for a long moment, reminding himself of why he was here. Breathing in deeply, he then released the breath along with all thoughts of friends and kin.

Thankful for the anti-glare coating on his binocs' lenses, Jack watched closely as Seth's sniper swept carefully past his position, leaving Jack unseen.

He was invisible.

He was a predator.

He was ready.

--

Inside Seth's compound, Sam continued to work on blending in.

Her expression carefully void and carefree, she attended her god from a distance, mindful of his ability to sense the residual naquadah within her body. Folding fabric in the corner of the room, the silken robes sleek between her fingers, she watched as some of the higher-ranked female acolytes served Seth. They massaged his hands, unlaced his boots.

Sam watched.

Then came the moment when he touched one and then another on the forehead, before leading the two brunettes from the room with a devious smile upon his face. Sam had to avert her eyes. The sheer repugnance of the sight of them following him away to be so _used _by their god left her unable to see through the tears.

Eager to be out of the imitation god's sight should he return, and remarkably reminiscent of her days at Basic Training, Sam signed herself up to help out in the kitchen. While at Basic, Kitchen Patrol had been one of the most sought after positions by those in the know. Away from the watchful eyes of their intense and often irritated Training Instructors, the kitchen was one place Air Force trainees could relax and eat at a comparatively leisurely pace in between washing dishes and hosing down the deck.

Sam hoped kitchen duty here in Seth's world would put her similarly at ease.

It would also give her time to plan a monumental distraction so Jack could make his way into the building. She knew he was planning on an ingress at dusk; sunset was only an hour away.

As a be-robed woman walked Sam through the intricacies of making flatbread, Sam finally decided on her method of distraction. She just hoped it would be big enough. For the next forty-five minutes, Sam lost herself in the rhythm of the bread making. Kneading the dough, rolling it into balls, and then pressing it flat to be handed off to another acolyte for cooking kept her hands and mind occupied. The smell of the flour and yeast brought Sam back to her childhood.

Knead, roll, press. The cadence of it settled Sam's pulse and before she knew it, the barely visible setting sun had touched the trees on the horizon. Knead, roll, press. The sky was a mellow orange in stark contrast to Sam's underlying anxious mood. Knead, roll, press.

She passed off the last stack of doughy disks and slowly picked the stickiness from her fingertips, sloughing the glutinous mess from her fingernails. Turning toward an empty corner of the room, Sam chanced an attempt at communication.

"Come in."

"_Here," _came the immediate response, low and distorted in her ear.

"On my mark."

"_Copy that."_

Sam wandered casually -- she hoped it looked casual -- past the stove to where the oil was boiling and offered to relieve the woman at the fire. An offered hand and a friendly look had the acolyte stepping away gratefully. Sam halfheartedly poked a fork at the flames before pulling the fry breads from the fire. The half-empty five gallon container of oil was still beside the stove where she'd observed it earlier.

A dipper from the rack behind the fire was soon in one hand and Sam used the other to fill a pitcher of water from the sink at her left. Turning back to the stove, she poured the water into the container of oil, watching as the water swirled with the oil only to settle at the bottom of the barrel.

"Three."

She filled the dipper with hot oil from the fryer.

"Two."

A quick flick of the wrist and it was done. The trailing spatter of grease reached the fire and ignited, leading the burst of yellow flames right back to the large barrel of cooking oil. With a muffled _foomp, _the shimmering surface of the oil ignited.

"One."

Sam turned to run, kicking backward with one heel as she went.

"Mark!"

She didn't look back but heard the gallons of oil and water splash across the tiled floor. The acrid scent of burning oil reached her nostrils, and Sam dove through the open door, pulling the other kitchen worker with her just as the heat from the deflagration reached the back of her neck.

Without turning around, Sam knew the entire kitchen would be in flames. The burning oil mixing with water in the spill would have instantly boiled the water into steam which would have in turn aerosolized the oil, allowing for near instantaneous mass ignition. Sam chanced a glance back. Smoke barreled from the door, and she muttered a description for Jack's sake.

"The kitchen is in flames. Move it."

_"Roger that. Request radio silence. Out,"_ came Jack's whispered reply.

The wide-eyed acolyte beside Sam took Sam's words upon herself and went running down the hallway shouting for help. Sam stood motionless while the woman disappeared around the corner, standing stock-still amid the billowing smoke. She strained her ears in vain to hear any sign of Jack's entrance into the building, every second she didn't hear resistance was a blessing.

Time slowed to a crawl, and the blossoming heat somehow reduced Sam's world to that second and that square foot of hallway. The only sound in her ears was the crackle of the inferno.

From a distance, heavy footsteps rang out, harsh in the increasing darkness. They were coming closer, and quickly.

Acting on instinct, Sam dropped to her hands and knees in the smoke-filled space, groping for a weapon she intellectually knew would not be there. Dropping her head even more to guard against the blazing smoke, Sam rubbed blearily at her eyes with the palms of her hands. The smoke stung, and her throat was threatening to close; she began to crawl away from the advancing blaze.

Booted feet stomped alongside her, and Sam rolled to where the floor met wall, trying to avoid discovery in the smoky darkness.

Looking up, she realized the men were armed with fire extinguishers, not weapons. They moved down the hall quickly, though twice hands reached out to touch her shoulder reassuringly and Sam came to understand the fact that she was under no kind of suspicion. Stumbling to her feet only to be knocked down by the searing heat, she was astounded by the fact that Seth's followers could remain upright and conscious under such conditions. At that same moment, the telltale tingle of naquadah once again filled Sam's senses.

No. Sam closed her eyes against the feeling, but it only intensified as several more men -- _Jaffa, _her mind screamed -- ran past her toward the burning wreck of a kitchen. There were Jaffa in the building. She hadn't warned Jack about Jaffa.

A gunshot rang out in the darkness, followed quickly by two more. Their retorts echoed starkly in Sam's ears.

Oh god, _Jack._

She was moving again before her mind had even settled on the direction, this time toward the sound of the gunfire. Her eyes narrowed against the ash, heat and smoke, Sam was soon on her feet.

Stumbling over her robes, Sam grabbed two fistfuls of the gray material, hiking it up around her knees so she could run. Down one more hallway and around a corner, and another large-caliber gunshot had Sam's heart in her throat.

She skidded to a stop in her bare feet on the highly polished wood floor and stared open-mouthed at the scene playing out before her.

--

"_The kitchen is in flames," _she'd said. "_Move it."_

And so he had.

The infiltration had gone well. Jack had made it across the open ground surrounding Seth's complex without being seen. It had just been a matter of waiting for Sam's distraction to pull the perimeter guards away, and jogging through the waist-high grass when the sniper was looking the other way. It was impossible for one lone guard to effectively watch the entire grounds, so when the man had turned away, Jack had taken advantage of every blind second.

Jack had pressed himself to the outside of the building after shouldering his AR15 and releasing his pack to the ground. A quick peek into an open ground floor window had shown the room to be empty, and Jack had tossed his pack in before following it to the floor, carrying the eight-pound assault rifle one-handed by its pistol grip. His finger had hovered over the trigger guard, feeling twitchy -- ready to fire at a moment's notice.

His boots had made no sound on the carpeted floor as he'd dropped from the windowsill. A quick sweep of the space, and Jack had moved quickly to the doorway in the semi-darkness, following the increasing sounds of chaos in the large building. He hadn't been able to smell any smoke yet, but heard distinct shouted orders and the sound of running feet.

Jack had known that the flames would spread quickly. He needed to take care of Seth and get Sam out.

Three steps and a quick sweep of the hallway later and he had made it through the hall and was running for cover. It had seemed everyone's attention had been focused on the fire. Jack had made it almost halfway across the building before his luck ran out.

He had ducked his head out around a corner for a quick survey, only to make eye contact with a particularly burly individual across the wide expanse of the room. With a quick mental reminder of, "The bigger they are…" Jack had ducked back, narrowed his eyes and listened to the jogging footsteps across the solid floor while he had calculated distances in his mind.

Mentally counting down, he had jumped out in front of the man, arms raised with his AR15 extended between his hands. _Wham. _The impact of the metal weapon's blow to the attacker's face had jarred Jack's arms to the bone. "Yes!" Jack had taunted, bringing the weapon right back to his shoulder as the man fell back to the floor.

Years of experience had him immediately sighting the weapon while simultaneously wishing for his Benelli M4 shotgun. A squeeze of the trigger and Jack pumped one shot into the first attacker's chest. Raising the weapon again, he was able to pull off two more shots into the group of followers in the room -- six of whom were rapidly closing the space between themselves and Jack.

The concussion from the AR15's shots still rang loudly in Jack's ears as he strategically retreated back behind the corner and into an adjacent room.

His position was quickly overrun, and Jack was only able to get off one more shot before being knocked backward by multiple powerful blows. Unable to pull the trigger, his hands grabbed wildly for the grip of his weapon as it was wrested from his grasp. Jack's heart pounded wildly, and he moved on instinct in the close quarters battle, lashing out with blow after blow of his own.

Pressing forward, Jack threw punch after punch, and began pounding into the group with his knees and elbows, aiming for the sensitive ribs, throat, and groin. However, there was something supernatural about the way these aggressors moved and in the way they took punches, and Jack felt the adrenaline in his body rise with his concern. Hit after hit was parried back at Jack and for every blow they blocked, his attackers pressed in and hit back, throwing powerful punches that threatened to break bone.

Jack's head was ringing from the blows and he tasted the coppery tang of blood in his mouth, but still his fists met flesh and the attackers gradually pulled back, their faces reflecting their uncertainty in dealing with the cornered warrior. To Jack's frustration, they remained relatively uninjured. He spit out a mouthful of blood in exasperation.

Panting heavily, he crouched down and pulled his tactical knife from his belt. Jack tumbled it into a two-fingered grasp and skillfully flung it into the neck of the nearest adversary.

The man's eyes went wide and he began to gasp for air while retching and clutching at his throat. His comrades merely pulled him away coldly and stepped forward to take the empty place, blocking any advantage Jack may have gained. One of them held Jack's AR15, and in an act of obviously growing impatience, the frowning man hefted the weapon by the barrel and slammed the butt of the gun into Jack's face.

The ground rushed up to meet Jack, and the last thing he saw before everything went black was the guard expertly tossing the assault rifle into a hold at the man's own shoulder and the star-shaped muzzle fire as the weapon was unloaded in his direction.

The weight of an eighteen-ton truck barreled into Jack's chest at the same moment he hit the floor. As the room darkened, the pain hit. Jack attempted to gasp and found himself unable to draw breath.

Having landed solidly on his side, Jack's face met the polished floor ungracefully, and as he clutched at his chest his last thought was of just how _warm _the blood pooling across his hands felt.

--

TBC

--

_AN: This is the part where you tell me how much you love angst._

_I would love to hear your reviews of the fic so far! (And your predictions/demands of which way it should go now...)  
_


	10. Chapter 10

_Same disclaimer and warnings apply._

_--_

_Previously:_

_Stumbling over her robes, Sam grabbed two fistfuls of the gray material, hiking it up around her knees so she could run. Down one more hallway and around a corner, another gunshot had Sam's heart in her throat._

_She skidded to a stop in her bare feet on the highly polished wood floor and stared openmouthed at the scene playing out before her._

_--_

_The ground rushed up to meet Jack, and the last thing he saw before everything went black was the guard expertly tossing the assault rifle into a hold at the man's own shoulder and the star-shaped muzzle fire as the weapon was unloaded in his direction._

_The weight of an 18 ton truck barreled into Jack's chest at the same moment he hit the floor. As the room darkened, the pain hit. Jack attempted to gasp and found himself unable to draw breath._

_Having landed solidly on his side, Jack's face met the polished floor ungracefully, and as he clutched at his chest his last thought was of just how warm the blood pooling across his hands felt._

--

As the butt of the weapon impacted with Jack's face, Sam had moved to call out, to do _something --_ but before she could act it was done. Jack was on his way to the floor and the Jaffa was swinging the weapon up to his shoulder and then he was _firing. _It took less than five seconds for the four shots to ring out, impossibly loud in the small space.

It was happening again.

Sam was forced to watch as Jack fell, defenseless to fight against the images of another time and another _life_ flashing before her eyes. Despair seized at Sam's heart as Jack slumped heavily onto his side, blood pooling obscenely beneath him, the spreading stain on the floor a foul cousin to the blooming blood that had sullied Jack's body on the floor of the desert planet so many months before.

Jack clutched at his chest even as his eyes rolled back in his head. She could see him fighting unconsciousness with everything he had, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. Still the darkness took him.

His hands, pressed so tightly to his vest as if they could somehow staunch the blood flow themselves, relaxed gradually, dropping to the floor in front of Jack with a final twitch.

Flexing her empty hands in frustration, Sam eyed the only weapon in the room as the Jaffa pulled it from his shoulder.

Playing her part to the fullest, she walked carefully into the room, closing the door silently behind her. Slow and measured steps. Head bowed. Hands clasped. The many Jaffa were studiously observing Jack in his struggle to live, and they paid her no attention as she carefully shouldered her way between them. Why would they? She was just a helpless acolyte.

Sam forced her gaze to the floor. Six steps, then ten.

A Jaffa stood over Jack's body, holding the AR15 assault rifle at his side by the handle, dangling the weapon casually from three fingers. Sam knelt beside him, which earned her a sidelong glance, but he reacted no further. She was to his right, the very side on which he held the weapon.

She kept her gaze carefully away from Jack's still form, lest she react outwardly. From the corner of her eye she could see the blood pulsing from a wound to ooze across his vest. Jack's heart still beat.

Sam took three swift breaths, a mental countdown of sorts, before blazing into action.

One hand pulled down on the butt of the rifle. The Jaffa's fingers tightened on the handle, acting as a hinge and as the barrel raised skyward, Sam slammed her palm into the center of the gun. Raising it into the vertical position she'd been hoping for, a quick pull of her thumb and the weapon discharged once, then twice, right under the chin of the hapless Jaffa. His startled gaze widened for a moment before he fell lifeless to the floor.

Rolling away with the weapon in her hands, the barrel still hot to the touch, Sam brought herself back up to her knees. She faced the group of unarmed Jaffa, shouldering the semi-automatic weapon and finding them in her sights. Aiming for one shot after another to the head or heart, she followed each with a carefully aimed shot to the belly in order to kill the larval symbiotes. Her mind filled in the silent screams as the miniature dragons died.

Shot after shot rang out and Sam's ears were ringing as she regained her footing, stepping away to fire a final two shots. The five standing Jaffa in the room had all fallen before they could reach her.

All was still. The smell of gunpowder was intense in a startlingly familiar way, spurring Sam into further motion to help her fallen comrade in the way she had so many times before.

On her way over to Jack, Sam pressed the clip release button and found she had only two rounds left. Pressing the clip back into the weapon, she knelt where Jack lay, hoping with everything she had that he still drew breath.

--

Jack awoke to the feel of hands on his body.

Although on many days he would have welcomed them, today Jack wasn't entirely sure it was a good thing. The first experimental inhalation stabbed through his upper body. The pain made him gasp, and before he knew it, Jack was involuntarily writhing from the agony of it. Every nefarious movement just served to increase his pain and Jack nearly cried out.

Instead, he latched on to the pain and held on. Pain meant he wasn't dead. He didn't know where he was or what had happened, but he wasn't dead. Jack focused his bleary mind onto the pain and the idea of stillness and the writhing stopped. His body stilled.

He grit his teeth and forced a breath out through his nose. One breath. Two.

The pain was intense. He couldn't discern just where it was centered or if it would stop. His pulse throbbed acutely through his extremities, and Jack knew his heart was pumping too fast. The blood rushed in his ears; it blocked out all sound.

Opening his eyes took longer than Jack would have wanted. Harsh light came from above, and its presence sharpened his sense of torment. Narrowing his eyes against the onslaught, he still couldn't focus his eyes long enough to see anything useful. Shadows. Movement. Nothing more.

He tried to use his arms to sit up, but only the one limb cooperated, and only halfway. His left arm came in against his torso but wouldn't hold any weight. The hand, sticky with blood, fisted from the pain of trying. Jack's right arm just lay on the cold floor, ignoring his commands entirely. With the next agonizing breath -- he'd held off as long as he could -- Jack felt the heels of his feet press into the ground as his body arched with the pain.

In his panic, it all came back to him. He had to get up, had to fight.

Jack attempted to bring himself to his hands and knees, but his body wasn't taking commands and the hands pressed him back to the floor. After a few seconds of struggling, he finally was able to order one arm to respond again, but after the initial exertion it did little more than twitch.

Vice-like pressure snaked its way around his inoperative arm and an inarticulate noise filled the air. It took a few moments for Jack to realize the sound was coming from his own throat; he clamped his jaw stubbornly shut and the groan ceased.

Another breath knifed its way through his body, and this time Jack held his breath. He refused to cooperate with anything that could cause him so much of this exquisite pain.

--

"Colonel? … Breathe!" Sam commanded. When the breath didn't come, she felt her alarm rising.

"_Shit…"_

One of the bullets had pulverized the bicep of Jack's right arm, close to the bone, severing the brachial artery on its way through. She'd applied the makeshift tourniquet, hastily torn from the fabric at the hem of her robes, to his arm just below the shoulder. The blood pouring from the wound had been significant before Sam had been able to engineer the tourniquet. The worst of the bleeding had stopped, but now he wasn't breathing.

As Sam rapidly tore away Jack's tactical vest and the cotton shirt beneath, she counted three bullets on the right side of his Kevlar vest. One lined up with the wound from his arm, the bullet suitably mangled from its tumbling trip through Jack's flesh. The other two were relatively intact, just flattened, and had been stopped by the vest low on Jack's ribs.

Sam used her hands to wipe away the worst of the blood and found the seeping entrance wound for the fourth missing round.

It had entered Jack's body near the woefully under-protected armpit of the vest. She pulled at the vest's straps and the Velcro strapping being ripped away sounded harsh in the silence of the room. Sam moved to hover over Jack's face.

Pulling back an eyelid, she noted the reactive pupil and the delayed wince as he tried to pull away from the brightness. The stubborn man was refusing to breathe and quickly losing the fight with consciousness, she realized.

She barked at him again. "Take a breath, Jack. Now."

He didn't comply, and as his head lolled to the side in the beginnings of unconsciousness, Sam pulled aside the unfastened Kevlar vest and began to rub determinedly at the hard cartilage at Jack's sternum with the knuckles of her fist. The skin of his chest warmed under the friction of the abrasion. She didn't stop until his body arched with the awareness of the intense discomfort and he took an involuntary breath.

Sam let out the breath she'd been holding herself and demanded, "Again."

Jack's bleary eyes opened and searched for the source of her voice. Finding her eyes, his gaze latched on desperately as he breathed haltingly in then out again.

"Hurts to breathe?" Sam asked, quieter this time.

Jack gave the barest of nods, and Sam gently ran her fingertips across the ribs on his swollen right side. A couple of them were definitely cracked, but felt intact and didn't explain the severe pain he was experiencing.

Her hand drifted higher toward what she suspected was the source of his pain -- the bullet that had entered just below his armpit had seemed to have landed in Jack's lung. The thought terrified Sam. The small caliber round would have tumbled and fragmented along its way, causing severe internal damage.

Jack tried to speak, his chin jutting upward with the effort. "Pneumotho--" The word was cut off with a spasm as Jack coughed.

Sam nodded quickly as the lump in her throat prevented her from speaking. She swallowed firmly as her fingertips prodded at the base of Jack's throat. His trachea was already shifting to the left, confirming Jack's suspicion of pneumothorax. His lung cavity was filling with air with every breath and blood with every beat of Jack's heart. "Yeah, Jack. Looks like it. Keep your breaths short. I need time to get you out of here."

The resigned look in Jack's eyes told her what she already knew: time was the one thing they didn't have.

Sam looked desperately around the room, searching for a way out other than the one she'd used to come in. The halls would be swarming with Jaffa and acolytes drawn to the sound of gunfire and it was only a matter of time before they opened the right door. She could still smell smoke, but the brunt of it was coming from her robes and not the hallway. It seemed the small army had managed to beat back the flames, at least for now.

The only window in the room was high and narrow. If she were to manage to get Jack through it, there was still a 10 foot drop to the ground, a two kilometer hike to their vehicle, and an hour's drive to the nearest trauma center.

Jack closed his eyes, apparently concentrating on breathing, and Sam used the moment to turn her head away and wipe the gathering tears from her eyes.

A shadow of movement visible beneath the door caught her attention. As she reached for the weapon, a touch at her hand had her glancing back at Jack.

His left arm outstretched and trembling from the effort, Jack pressed a clip for the AR-15 into her hand. Testing its weight in her hand, she knew it to be full. Without lowering her gaze from the door, Sam supported the assault rifle against her shoulder and on the palm of her left hand, using her right hand to release the clip and install the new one in one swift motion.

The nearly-empty clip clattered on the hard floor, and Sam winced as she rose to her feet -- prepared to do whatever it took to stop whomever or whatever walked through that door.

Sam watched, her entire body taut with the tension of waiting, as the shadow paused outside the door to the room.

The knob turned, and the door swung open to reveal none other than Seth himself. He stood, posing regally in the doorway in his floor-length black leather trench, golden-clad hand raised, ready for attack. The line of his shoulders relaxed slightly when his eyes took in the two living occupants of the room.

Seth stepped forward and Sam leaned into her stance, her finger tightening over the trigger as her eyes centered his forehead in the sight of the weapon. A second step forward by Seth and Sam squeezed.

The retort of the rifle was loud in the room and as the weapon kicked back into Sam's shoulder, Seth's shield flared to life. Its golden glow shimmered into existence as it absorbed the kinetic energy from Sam's shot. The bullet dissipated into thin air and Seth stood unharmed -- and smug.

"You can drop your weapon now." Seth's voice was calm, but that coolness was belied by the angry downward tilt of his head and the set of his jaw as he took in the bodies of the Jaffa surrounding Sam and Jack.

Sam shook her head infinitesimally and kept the gun aimed at Seth's forehead. As Seth stepped into the room, circling around the dead bodies, Sam took small step after small step to keep herself between the Goa'uld and Jack. A glance at the door showed more Jaffa guarding the exit. These ones were armed with zats and she didn't stand a chance in a firefight with the five of them.

Behind her, Sam could hear Jack's breath becoming more labored and her heart cried out painfully at the sheer helplessness of the situation.

Seth took a step toward her, and then another, and Sam's skin began to crawl with the intense prickle that screamed "_Goa'uld!" _to her senses. Her heart thumped in her chest and try as she might, she couldn't think of a way to take him out. Her mind flashed back to another time when she had faced down the Goa'uld Apophis in his personal shield. She'd died that time and Sam wondered if death would come as quickly this time, too.

Seth took a step to the side and Sam watched his brows come together in thought as he stared down at Jack on the floor. Seth's dark gaze came back up to meet Sam's eyes and his scowl lightened, becoming something that mocked a smile.

"It is _you_," he murmured. "Now this is interesting." One arm shot out to the side and the golden hand device was now aimed at Jack's still form. "Lower your weapon," the Goa'uld commanded Sam.

After a tense moment of indecision, her gaze flickering between Jack and Seth, Sam finally relented. She felt the weight of the loss as Seth pulled the gun from her hands, tossing it to clatter against a wall in the corner of the room.

Seth reached out a finger to trace Sam's cheek and when the touch came, she was filled with revulsion. The long fingernail skimmed leisurely along the skin of her face, trailing down her jaw until he finally held her chin in his cool hand.

"You were once host to one of my kind." It wasn't a question.

Sam held his gaze and said nothing. To admit her time as a host to Jolinar of Malkshur would be tantamount to admitting her knowledge of a working gate or hyperspace-capable ship. As far as Seth knew, Earth's stargate had been buried in Giza and remained there still.

Squeezing her face cruelly, Seth leaned in. _"Who sent you?" _he demanded in the distinctive voice of the Goa'uld. _"The Tok'ra? A System Lord?" _His breath was hot on her face and Sam knew his oppressive fingers would leave bruises on her jaw. _"Who!"_

By the time Sam had registered the look of disgust in his eyes, Seth had tossed her harshly to the floor. She landed at Jack's side, and clambered to her knees to stay between him and Seth.

Seth sent a dismissive glance Jack's way. "He is already dead. You know this. If not now, then it is a mere matter of minutes." His brows knit together into a look of mock concern. "If _you _want to live, you will tell me what I want to know." Seth's tone brokered no discussion, but still Sam did not waiver.

Their eyes locked and Sam and Seth stared into one another's eyes: Seth's gaze unyielding; Sam's resolute.

Seth moved to speak first, his voice simmering with anger. "Very well."

The golden ribbon device on Seth's hand was raised over Sam's kneeling form and began to glow with an otherworldly yellow light. Sam felt a sensation not unlike an electrical charge flood her body, her muscles tensing against her will. Then struck the agony. Her head was thrown back from the force of it, her skull threatening to burst from the weight of the pain. It knifed through her like nothing else in the universe. Sam's mind focused down to a pinprick-small point, it could process nothing but the _pain _and how badly it _hurt._

A thought drifted into Sam's consciousness. Surely she would simply cease to exist if this continued. How long could one person endure such pain before they just gave up? She could just … give up.

A single, commanding word abruptly encroached on Sam's awareness. _"STOP!"_

Sam found herself on hands and knees, gasping for breaths that could not come quickly enough. Her heart pounded to a staccato beat and she resisted the urge to retch and vomit.

Her head turned toward the sound of the voice and she saw a new figure in the doorway. Sam's mind rebelled at the vision before her.

It couldn't be.

The woman stepped forward, resplendent in her ornate gown. "Hello," she said with a deceptively mild smile. "We are _Hathor_."

--

TBC

--

_I hope people are still reading and that those who are reading are enjoying! Reviews have dropped off a bit, and that always worries me as a writer. I'm still new at this, you know.  
_

_For those curious, here's another insight into the writing process: the soundtrack for this chapter was … Hurt by Nine Inch Nails, Spent by Filter, Shut Your Eyes by Snow Patrol, Sitting Still Talking About Jets by Detachment Kit, Carousel by Iron & Wine, It Ends Tonight by The All-American-Rejects, and Take a Bow by Muse._

_Did you know music actually stimulates many different parts of your brain, including those responsible for memory, emotion, food, and sex? A pleasurable song also stimulates the brain's amygdala where you process negative emotions like fear and frustration (ie: Writer's block? What writer's block?). I find some songs (Gary Jules' Mad World comes to mind) excel at bringing about a depth of emotion that would be otherwise hard to touch, for me at least._


	11. Chapter 11

_The same disclaimer (I own nothing but the DVDs) and warnings (copious author's notes, watch out for the occasional F word, and angst ahoy!) still apply. _

_AN: Another secret of the writing process? I only write in Arial. I can't stand the Times New Roman font._

_I could go on and on about why chapter 11 took so long (in the past six weeks there's been bronchitis for myself, an illness serious enough to require chest x-rays for my son, a broken tooth requiring oral surgery for my husband, family visiting from out-of-state, a reunion with a parent not seen for 27 years, a return of cancer in my husband's dog who then ran away while out of her mind on pain-pills, my nineteen-year-old cat passing away, my grandmother having a stroke, both of my bosses being out of town for three weeks and putting me 99.5% responsible for the running the store while they were away … why yes I'm surprised I've been getting out of bed in the morning, and no I'm not kidding about any of that) … but I won't. Go on and on, that is._

_So without further ado … here it is. Chapter 11. Enjoy._

_--_

_A thought drifted into Sam's consciousness. Surely she would simply cease to exist if this continued. How long could one person endure such pain before they just gave up? She could just … give up._

_A single, commanding word abruptly encroached on Sam's awareness. "STOP!"_

_Sam found herself on hands and knees, gasping for breaths that could not come quickly enough. Her heart pounded to a staccato beat and she resisted the urge to retch and vomit._

_Her head turned toward the sound of the voice and she saw a new figure in the doorway. Sam's mind rebelled at the vision before her._

_It couldn't be._

_The woman stepped forward, resplendent in her ornate gown. "Hello," she said with a deceptively mild smile. "We are _Hathor_."_

_--_

From Jack's position on the floor, he watched Sam's body stiffen. His relief at the cessation of whatever device of torture Seth had been using on Sam was quickly tempered by the look of sheer despair in Sam's eyes.

Whoever this Goa'uld Hathor was, she meant business.

With the wave of a hand, more of the tall warrior-like servants filled the room, and Jack's hand -- the one he could feel -- itched for a weapon.

As Sam dragged herself to her feet, Jack was impressed with the strength she conveyed. He recognized the sheen of sweat across her brow, and the tremor of her hands. The gizmo the Goa'uld Seth had been using had obviously brought an immense amount of pain upon Samantha Carter.

And still she stood to face the newest threat.

Jack desperately wished he was able to take a full breath. Experimentally breathing in a little deeper, his body involuntarily curled in upon itself as the pain once again overwhelmed the pervasive numbness seeping across his body. An intense spasm stabbed across the injured side of his chest, and Jack pressed his head back into the floor to ground himself through the agonizing tremor.

Breathing shallowly, carefully, he relaxed as the numbness slowly returned. Jack's fingertips tingled and lights began to flash behind his eyes. He knew his deadened senses must be from a lack of oxygen, but at that moment, he found it hard to care.

Opening the eyes he hadn't realized he'd closed, Jack watched as the regal figure of Hathor moved toward Sam. Stepping carefully, she avoided the bodies of the members of her faction who had fallen beneath the hail of bullets put forth by the weapon Sam had wielded.

When she spoke, the creature's voice dripped with malice. "You have once been possessed by a Goa'uld, we sense."

Sam's response was immediate. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You do. Tell us -- which of our kind has occupied your _excellent _form?" Hathor stepped around Sam as she spoke, weaving herself between Jack and Seth and the waiting guardsmen. "Was the Goa'uld's death swift? Is that why its remnants remain?"

Leaning in toward Sam's face, she must have observed in it something beyond the range of Jack's vision. Her gaze flickering across Sam's features, a look of pleasure crossed Hathor's face. She continued, "No, we think not. It was a lingering death, was it not? The shadow of its suffering is yet upon you. You have already learned … the pain a Goa'uld can inflict on its host is _unimaginable."_

The trembling in Sam's hands had returned. She obviously wasn't yet recovered from having her head fried, and Jack began to worry. Bracing himself against the pain, he drew enough breath to speak, concentrating fully on allowing his voice to sound as clear and strong as possible.

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

Though his voice did not carry as far as he wished, it did the job he'd intended. Hathor's attention drifted downward, and she stepped away from Sam.

"We are the mother of all pharaohs."

"No, you're whackjob. With a snake in your head," Jack ground out between shallow inhalations. "How do I … talk to the snake … anyway?" he finished, hand waving feebly at his side. He was out of breath.

From her position of leaning in to hear Jack's quiet words, Hathor drew up to her full height, incensed. Her eyes flashed in anger, and Jack felt an unknown terror coiling low in his belly.

Her voice was wickedly distorted in its fury. _"We _are Hathor. Nothing of our host remains." With a haughty set of her shoulders, she paced away, pressing Sam backward against two of the henchmen with her presence.

"You have been a host."

Sam's gaze was resolute. "No."

Hathor narrowed her eyes. "You lie."

The short breaths Jack had been taking caught in his throat, and he was taken with a sudden paroxysm. Coughing, the pain ripped through him, and he couldn't find breath enough to stop. His body spasming with each cough, Jack found himself on the losing end of conscious thought.

The lights behind his widening eyes returned, and the room faded from Jack's awareness as the pain overwhelmed his grasp on consciousness.

--

Her eyes narrowing, Hathor began to lose her composure. "We know you hosted one of the Goa'uld," she spat venomously. Eying Sam from head to toe, Hathor pursed her lips and regained a measure of calmness.

Sam stayed silent under the inspective eyes of the Goa'uld, knowing nothing she could say would convince the queen that Sam knew nothing of the movements of the Tok'ra or of the System Lords.

Hathor seemed to weigh her options, gazing about herself and walking slowly around Samantha once again. Sam kept her gaze on the Goa'uld, willing her body to be still despite the loathing coursing through her veins at the creature's proximity to the man on the floor.

Sam could hear Jack's labored breathing behind her; his breaths were coming shorter and faster now. Daring to glance at him, she noted the sightless stare, the tense line of his shoulders, the jut of his jaw, and knew before long he would be unable to draw breath at all. Sam's throat tightened at the helplessness of the situation, at Jack's suffering, and abstractly she wished Hathor would simply kill them both quickly and be done with it. She knew Jack had had enough of this drawn-out torture.

The Goa'uld queen appeared to be thinking deeply. As she walked, she flexed the hand on which her golden hand device rested; the matching golden fingernails on her other hand caressed the weapon longingly and lovingly.

Visibly coming to some kind of decision, she stopped pacing and faced Sam once more.

"If you genuinely have no knowledge of what we speak, then you shall not have the ability to use this." From within the folds of her gown, Hathor withdrew a Goa'uld healing device. Its rounded form filled her palm, handle side up, and Sam felt her breath catch.

"Such a shame," Hathor continued, her eyes sparkling with the malice her smooth voice failed to convey. "The gray-haired one is a fine specimen of your kind. And yet, he will die helplessly here at our feet while his extraordinary beloved stands stubbornly by." Turning away, she turned the healing device in the light, examining it with reverence before she continued. "If only she had the willingness to use such a simple tool of the Gods..."

Hathor sighed, the sound of it small and sad, in direct contrast with the smiling pleasure with which her next words dripped. "We will greatly enjoy witnessing his inevitable death."

Sam felt something inside her snap at the words, and she locked her gaze desperately on the Colonel's trembling form, willing the situation to be any but what it was. Jack lay prone on the floor in a sticky pool of his own blood. His lips were a terrifying shade of blue, his eyes rolling back behind half-drawn lids, mouth gaping with every beleaguered breath. Sam slowly knelt and reached out tentatively, brushing her fingertips along his nearest arm only to recoil quickly from the touch. The tourniquet left that arm pale and cold. It felt devoid of life and Sam knew the rest of his body would soon follow.

Closing her eyes, Sam was momentarily transported back to the Tok'ra planet, to the last time she'd watched a Jack O'Neill die. Drawing a deep breath in through her nose, she recognized the acrid tang of blood and iron in the air from that fateful day. Jack once again drew the same gasping breaths. Without further conscious thought, Sam was bringing herself to her feet and holding a hand out in Hathor's direction.

The Goa'uld hesitated, searching Sam's eyes -- for what, Sam was not sure. Knowledge? Information? She knew that by asking for the healing device she was synonymous with admitting to having been host to one of the creature's kind. The tingling of her scalp and spine told her, however, that the Goa'uld in the room could sense her very personal history with the Tok'ra as easily as she could detect the parasites' own intolerable presence.

Her gaze steely, Sam held the eyes of her enemy, mentally searching for the words needed. When they came, her voice was strong. "Gal a'quel."

Hathor's eyebrows raised and Sam knew she'd gotten her message across. Hathor acquiesced, placing the healing device in Sam's outstretched hand, just as Sam had requested in Goa'uld.

Though the queen's expression revealed nothing at the revelation, Sam knew she had given something of herself up in that moment. With Jack's life hanging in the balance, she found it hard to care.

Kneeling at the Colonel's side, Samantha swallowed the despair creeping in a the edges of her consciousness and focused her thoughts on activating the healing device. She'd had little experience in using one, and it took everything she had to bring about the concentration necessary for its use.

Raising the piece of technology over Jack's body and cradling it beneath her two hands, she focused her mental energy into the device and _felt _rather than saw it begin to glow. The background tingle of naquadah in her body grew into an insistent and fiery burn and Sam clenched her jaw against the sensation. With every breath, she directed the gathering energy into the device and went to work.

Glimpses of the knowledge she had lost with the long-ago death of her symbiote Jolinar began to creep into her awareness. A word here, a feeling there -- Sam relaxed her mind and allowed the latent instincts and half-remembered thoughts to drive her use of the device.

With her eyes closed, an overview of Jack's physiology came into her consciousness and Sam's worst fears were confirmed: the pneumothorax was critical.

Sam mouth opened in a silent gasp as a sense of the sheer pressure of the air accumulating in Jack's chest assailed her. Not only was one of his lungs pressed tightly toward the cavity's midline, its spongy mass struggling and failing to inflate, but the pressure was squeezing his heart and its vessels to the side, the strain preventing the flow of blood from Jack's heart. She could see its image in her mind, the big muscle pumping frantically against the crushing force -- both atria contracting rhythmically, pulling in the oxygen depleted blood before pressing it forward, only to have the life-giving fluid accumulate within the ventricles with almost nowhere to go.

Letting her mind drift, Sam followed Jack's blocked pulmonary artery to the lung and his injuries, centering the healing device's energy there.

Time ceased to exist for Sam as she worked. She lost track of for how long she knelt on the floor, eyes closed against the harsh overhead light, hands cradling the crystalline high-tech device. Her mind racing to her full ability, Sam began the slow process of healing Jack O'Neill.

The healing device allowed Sam to see the constituents of Jack's body as if under a microscope, and, using her thoughts, she focused her mental energy into the cellular level. Even as she brought broken cells back together, Sam allowed pathways to form between adjacent cell membranes within the injured lung. The pressurized air in Jack's chest was released in several slow, hissing breaths from between his dusky blue lips.

As the pressure released, the mosaic of specialized cells that allow for the exchange of gasses in Jack's blood came into view, and -- eyes darting furiously under fluttering eyelids -- Sam shifted her thoughts even deeper, to the molecular level. She scanned the now free-flowing blood in Jack's circulatory system. Prompting the alveoli in his lungs to swiftly swap oxygen for the acrimonious carbon dioxide, she slowly opened her eyes, watching as Jack's color began to improve steadily with each breath.

Studiously ignoring the presence of the Goa'uld and Jaffa behind her, Sam brought the illuminated healing device to settle over Jack's injured arm. Returning her eyelids to their lowered positions, she used the energy the device was drawing from her body to knit together the shattered flesh. After some time, she removed one hand from the healing device, untwisting the knot holding tension on the tourniquet.

Sam felt relief flood through her. Healthy pink color spread down Jack's arm, and Sam dropped the healing device with a clatter as the returning blood banished the gray and lifeless look of the limb.

Taking his hand in hers, she pressed the fingertips to her lips as their color returned, and Sam was gladdened by the warmth in them. Losing herself momentarily in the relief, she kissed his hand again and again. Jack was alive and would stay alive. Her throat tightening at the thought that they'd once again escaped certain death -- for the moment -- the realization that they were now at the mercy of two rogue Goa'uld came upon her.

At the very moment her body stiffened with the comprehension, rough hands grabbed at her from behind, and Sam found herself immobilized, elbows held tight at her back, and her knees pressed tightly to the floor. Pressing her head upward in the futile struggle, she found the Goa'uld queen leaning in to meet Sam's eyes smugly.

"We shall greatly enjoy witnessing your subjugation, my dear. The pain, as you well remember, will be _unimaginable_." With one flippant gesture, Hathor's Jaffa were pulling Sam bodily from the room.

From her position between the two Jaffa, Sam watched as Hathor gazed calmly down at Jack's form on the floor. Her last view of him was of his utter stillness as the Goa'uld queen knelt down at his side, a quiet smile on her malevolent face.

Glancing up momentarily, Hathor barked at Seth. "Shal'kek!" And so Seth followed Samantha from the room, following malevolently behind as the Jaffa dragged Sam down the hall.

--

Laying on his back on the highly-polished and cold wooden floor, Jack fought to keep his breath slow, deep and even. The first thing Jack noticed as he returned to consciousness was the strident absence of pain. The second was the fact that he could breathe again.

Pulling in another deep breath, he relished the feel of the air moving across his lips like he never had before. Never in his life had the simple act of drawing oxygen into his lungs been so sweet. He tasted the clear air on his tongue and swallowed the emotion that threatened to overwhelm.

The next deep, pleasurable breath brought with it a scent of exotic spice, and he opened his eyes to meet an icy grey gaze.

Startled, Jack didn't hesitate. While his right arm feinted toward Hathor's face, his left hand tightened around the device of Sam's in the pocket of the tac vest at Jack's side.

Equally surprised by Jack's move to attack, Hathor pulled back, blocking the first blow with her arm. Anticipating her backward motion, he palmed the flat gizmo and thrust it behind Hathor's head.

Her retreat stopped suddenly as the back of her head stuck metal; with the flick of a thumb, Jack activated the device.

The queen's body went rigid, and as her eyes rolled back in her head, Jack flipped his body from beneath hers. Moving into a crouch, hands on the floor in front of him for balance, he watched as the electricity arced between the device tangled in Hathor's hair and the back of her head. Her eyes widened further as she collapsed to the floor, body spasming with the electric force.

The battery's cells quickly depleted, leaving the Goa'uld queen facedown on the floor, small tendrils of smoke drifting away from where the device lay -- the smell of burned hair and scorched flesh filled the air.

Still Jack crouched, motionless.

That the device worked as Sam devised didn't surprise him; however, the violence of it was startling. It was nothing like the tasers he'd handled in the past. This electrical weapon was unforgiving in its brutality.

Raising from his position near the floor, Jack took a cautious step toward the body. A sudden twitch of the woman's arm had him sidestepping the body to seize the AR-15 where it lay forgotten in its corner of the room.

The arm twitched again, the palm pressing flat against the floor, fingertips struggling for purchase against the slick surface. Jack brought himself back to the body at a half-run, and steeling himself, he took sight with the weapon before tucking the toe of one boot beneath the Goa'uld's shoulder. With a swift kick, he flipped the body over onto its back and once again met startling grey eyes.

The terror he saw in those eyes was entirely unexpected.

Malice had fallen away to an expression of fear and desperation. The eyes darted frantically, and as Jack leaned in cautiously for a closer look, a gasp escaped the woman's lips. "Aht." A hand came up in front of her face in defense, hiding the eyes.

Her body began to shake and Jack used the barrel of the weapon to push her arm aside. There were tears on her cheeks, and as her mouth silently gaped, Jack could see the slackness at one side of the face that showed that she was bleeding within the brain.

"Aht," she gasped again, pain visible on her delicate features. "Tahk'seem."

Pressing the barrel of the weapon into the woman's chest, Jack untrustingly knelt on one knee before her. "I don't understand you," he said in the slow clear voice he reserved for the foreign and the mentally deranged.

Her face crumpling, the tears flowing freely now, she sobbed. "Eter'u shu nu'khemet, ghetu mo hehr'r rhed wehy." * Drawing a ragged breath, she clutched at the barrel of the gun with one hand; the other hand lay limp at her side. Another seizure racked her body, leaving her lax and breathless.

Pulling the barrel of the weapon to her forehead, swallowing her tears, she met Jack's eyes meaningfully from the floor where she lay. "Mahs'iway."

"Mossy-way?" Jack questioned, rolling the unfamiliar word on his tongue.

The young woman attempted a short nod, only to stiffen in pain as the mortal injury to the back of her head contacted the floor. "Mahs'iway," she gasped again. "Ah!" Pressing her forehead into the barrel of the weapon, she rode out the violent quaking of her body.

Having witnessed human beings in the throes of death in the past, Jack understood exactly what she was asking of him.

Closing his eyes momentarily before coming to a decision, Jack stood, pulling the weapon from the woman's clutching fingers.

She began to babble again, her words slurring the ancient language even further. Her only working hand swept the air in front of her, desperately searching for Jack. Her eyes, now sightless, swept helplessly across him, unseeing, and Jack stepped back further in order to sight the weapon so he could fire.

Pausing as another shuddering tremor coursed through her body, Jack waited until she stilled, then aimed the weapon exactly. Taking a breath and holding it momentarily, Jack closed his eyes as his finger squeezed the trigger.

The retort was loud in the small space, and he was turning away by the time the recoil of the weapon even registered against his shoulder. His mind knew what he would see if he were to look at the body, but he couldn't bring himself to witness the gore that would be left behind by the high-velocity shot to the head.

As often as he'd taken human lives, he avoided seeing the aftermath if he didn't have to. The crumpled form visible in his peripheral vision told him everything he needed to know.

Pressing himself to the wall behind the door, his muscles trembling from the exertion, Jack waited for the guards to rush into the room. Predictably, they didn't clear the space behind them and two more headshots had him eliminating the only possible witnesses to his presence.

Clearing the hallway and finding it empty, Jack ghosted out into the building.

He had to find Sam.

--

TBC

--

* Hathor's host lived through such extreme pain and devastation for the better part of three thousand years that she was (as Jack correctly interpreted) begging him to end her life. "Eter'u shu nu'khemet, ghetu mo hehr'r rhed wehy," roughly (VERY roughly) translates to, "The river of Egypt is dry, the water is crossed on foot." It is a line from The Prophecy of Neferty, an Ancient Egyptian tale which portends a time of ultimate chaos and destruction. Let me know if you want a link to the audio recording I used for this phonetic transcription of the sentence. The true beauty of this language is impossible to convey in print.

--

_AN: Thank you so much for continuing to read and to review. The private messages are especially touching, as I imagine I would be the only one thinking about this story on a daily basis. I appreciate the continued support, and will do my best to keep updating regularly. _

_I apologize if you happen to speak any form of Egyptian, as I'm sure I butchered it.  
_

_Also, I apologize for any typos or grammatical inconsistencies in this chapter. I should really wait one more day and more thouroghly edit this, but I went ahead and posted it anyway. You guys have been more than patient. Do let me know if anything glaring stands out at you, and I'll correct it (although, I'm sure I'll be reading through it again before long)._


	12. Chapter 12

Same disclaimer (I own nothing except the DVDs) and warnings (copious author's notes; "adult language;" and angst ahoy, grab your tissues!) still apply.

[Just FYI: I will be re-uploading chapters 8-11 in the next day or two for typos and a couple of small technical details. Nothing that effects the story will be changed, so no need to re-read if you get a notification for them. And holy moly were there typos in those chapters. I apologize. I'm surprised you guys are still reading!]

_AN: Once again, thanks for the well wishes and words of encouragement, folks. This month has been mostly awesome, especially when compared to March. Things are no longer going apocalyptically wrong, anyway. The best news of all: my grandmother's stroke has been classified as "transient eschimic" which means the brain damage wasn't permanent (thank goodness). Also, in case anyone was worried, the cat who passed away was not the legendary Jackson (as heard of in my author's notes) but was the cat I'd had since I was a young girl. "Zane Grey" was 19, and elderly. His death was sad, yes, but was also entirely expected (if not overdue, the poor thing!)._

_And speaking of Jackson the Cat (I swear he was named that when I got him), I think he's still mad at me for moving the table that was once next to our back door. It had to go. You see, he'd been standing on it to acquire enough leverage to open the door. You'd think he would use the open door to escape, but noooo, my freakin' weird cat instead decided to let a stray from the neighborhood inside our house for a party. He's certainly one-of-a-kind._

_I hope you enjoy chapter twelve. It's a long one. The only earlier break I found was an incredibly cruel one, so I just kept going…_

_--_

_Previously:_

_Taking a breath and holding it momentarily, Jack closed his eyes as his finger squeezed the trigger._

_The retort was loud in the small space, and he was turning away by the time the recoil of the weapon even registered against his shoulder. His mind knew what he would see if he were to look a the body, but he couldn't bring himself to witness the gore that would be left behind by the high-velocity shot to the head._

_As often as Jack had taken human lives, he avoided seeing the aftermath if he didn't have to. The crumpled form of the former Goa'uld queen visible in his peripheral vision told him everything he needed to know._

_Pressing himself to the wall behind the door, his muscles trembling from the exertion, Jack waited for the guards to rush into the room. Predictably, they failed to clear the space behind them and two more headshots had him eliminating the only possible witnesses to his presence._

_Clearing the hallway and finding it empty, Jack ghosted out into the building._

_He had to find Sam._

_--_

The concrete floor was cold against Sam's cheek and she braced herself for another blow, eyes squinting against her dizziness in the dim room. Her fingertips pressed painfully against the hard surface, she waited, trying not to expel the meager contents of her stomach.

The attack ended as quickly as it had begun -- Sam only realized she was safe from further incident when she heard the heavy door close, the lock clicking loudly behind the Jaffa as they left the room. There was no sign of Seth. Breathing heavily through her mouth because her swollen nose wasn't allowing passage for anything other than blood, Sam shifted her weight onto her forearms, lifted her head from the floor, and began to take stock of her injuries.

Her ribs hurt when she moved, but not when she breathed, and she knew from previous experience they were likely to be free of serious damage. Sam set her lips in a tight line, and a deliberate burst of air through her nose expelled a viscous blood clot onto the floor. The memory of the sound of crunching cartilage along with the vision of a Jaffa fist impacting the center of her face came back to Sam; bright stars had danced behind her eyes. She winced at the recollection. The nose was most definitely broken.

Wiping the blood from her face with the back of a wrist and panting heavily, Sam turned over onto her back and took a moment to breathe deeply, trying to diffuse the leftover adrenaline in her body. Her hands shook from the overdose of endorphins in her system and the vertigo wasn't helping with her sense of disorientation.

Sam attempted to sit … the floor swayed beneath her, her vision whiting out and she did her best not to strike her head as she collapsed back to the floor. Letting out a huff of air, Samantha tried not to compare her current situation to that of Jack, taking an injury survey of her limbs instead. She couldn't think of him now, not without losing control of her rapidly multiplying fear.

Sam first wiggled one foot, then the other, finding both legs in working order, though one knee protested keenly at the movement. (She doubted she'd be able to bear weight on it for days.)

She could no longer ignore her shattered right hand. Lifting the offending digits in front of her face in the dim light, Sam could see the knuckles already swelling in a grotesque way. Flexing the fingers experimentally, Samantha cringed while making a tentative fist. Her knuckles creaked excruciatingly in protest, and her middle finger remained stubbornly extended. That middle digit also wandered crookedly in the distance between its second and third knuckle. Definitely broken.

Sam sighed, guilt flooding through her with the ache from her injuries. She had completely and _utterly _lost control at the vision of Hathor moving in toward Jack, swinging wildly at her captors in an attempt at a diversion. It had taken a moment for the Jaffa to react to her sudden rebellion, and her fists had met flesh solidly, repeatedly, effectively -- for as little as it helped Jack. She'd been tackled to the floor before long and Sam was now paying the price for the impulsive mêlée. She wondered how far she could get in an escape with an out of order hand.

The middle finger of that hand still raised, Sam gestured profanely at the solidly-closed door before allowing her arm to flop to the ground beside her in the darkness. Her vertigo was slowly transforming into exhaustion, and from her position on the floor as the dizziness continued to subside, Sam examined her surroundings for clues as to where she was and how to escape.

She was underground, Sam knew that much. They'd come down at least two narrow flights of stairs, two well-built Jaffa dragging her between them, and a third knocking at her with his fists whenever her resistance became too much for the pair to bear. The last half of her involuntary trip through Seth's compound was indistinct. She'd taken more than one solid hit to the head in her struggles.

Each and every time Sam had managed a glance back between blows, there had been Seth, stalking wickedly behind them, his dark eyes narrowed at her in anger, his long hair loose and in a state of uncharacteristic disarray.

She sighed and ran her uninjured left hand across her purpling forehead in frustration, closing her eyes against the sight of the small and featureless cell. Her fingers came away from her hairline sticky with blood. The bleeding from the strike to her forehead had stopped, although the area at which she'd been punched was still quite numb to the touch.

At the end of their journey to the out-of-the-way cell, Seth had drawn himself up to his full height, and was preparing to enter the cell with Sam when he had reeled as if struck, pressing a hand to the concrete wall to keep himself upright. As he'd recovered his balance, the Goa'uld had simply gestured dazedly to the Jaffa to toss Samantha inside, and they had obeyed, while exchanging concerned glances at the sudden weakness shown by their god.

Collapsed in a heap in the center of the room, Sam had expected more blows and demands for information, perhaps another round with Seth and the ribbon device, but to her surprise and relief … no one had come inside.

Sam wondered where Seth was now. She could only hope he was nowhere near Jack.

Her breathing quickened at the thought of Jack alone with the queen Goa'uld. Pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes, Sam tried to shove away the images of the disoriented Jack she'd met long ago at Stargate Command, the Jack who had been overcome by an inexplicable adoration of Hathor, Jack with a disdainful pat at her shoulder as he tried to convince Sam of her own irrationality -- himself already under Hathor's supernatural control.

Hathor's power over the men on base had nearly allowed the Goa'uld to take over the entire military complex. It had only been the quick thinking of the women in taking advantage of the unnaturally libidinous airmen that had saved the people of Cheyenne Mountain -- and Earth -- from certain domination.

Lying on the floor, though discouraged by how horribly wrong her mission had gone this time, Sam swallowed back her emotion and stubbornly refused to be disheartened. SG1 had wriggled out of tighter spots in the past and she had hold on to the hope that she could somehow rectify this situation before the Goa'uld could gain a foothold on Earth.

Hands still pressed tightly to her eyes, Sam worked to banish her concern for Jack from her mind. It had been years since she'd had to practice this kind of quiet detachment when it came to her feelings for the man, and she'd forgotten just how difficult it could be. Her smashed right hand was proof positive to Sam of her inability to function properly in a militaristic situation complicated by love and affection.

The crushing weight of her worry was incredibly tangible and Sam felt the physical weight of it lift as she purposefully pressed her love and adoration for Jack O'Neill to the deepest and most hidden parts of her heart. She would carry her affection for him there, where it would be safe, where it wouldn't interfere with her ability to be the warrior Sam knew she had become after years at war with the despicable Goa'uld.

Breathing deeply, Sam pulled her military training to the forefront, remembering all that made her a colonel in the United States Air Force, disregarding the non-life she'd been living for the past few months. Her lips moved silently as Samantha brought forth the words that would give her strength. _I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country and planet free. I will trust in my god, my people, and in the United States of America._

The cold of the concrete began to seep into Samantha's bones, and she shuffled carefully onto her side, curling up into herself to get away from the chill. Tucking the rough-spun robes around herself, she shut her eyes against the silent room, a room so dark her closing eyelids scarcely dimmed the view at all.

Sam tried to rest her body while working through the situation with her brain, but found exhaustion was threatening to overcome. Clenching her injured fist once more, Sam latched onto the pain, using it as a bright spot on which to focus her mind, maintaining her consciousness and readying herself for whatever the long night might bring.

How long she lay there, Samantha was not sure. Just as she'd decided she had been locked away and forgotten, she heard the rattle of the heavy lock being unfastened. As the door flew open, Sam was forced to throw an arm across her eyes against the assaulting brightness from the well-lit hallway.

Silhouetted against the brightness was a single Jaffa. He commanded Sam to stand.

"Noc," she answered quietly in his own language, not bothering to move from her spot on the floor. She told him no, knowing all the while it would make no difference if he truly wanted her to rise.

He barked out the command once more, and stepped into the room, his broad form filling the doorway, the pain stick in his hand menacing and dark against the starkness of the electric lights.

_--_

Dawn was breaking behind the shuttered windows, and Jack ran an exhausted hand over his face in frustration.

His search of the building had gone slowly, and Jack was coming to the reluctant conclusion that Seth may have somehow removed Sam from the building entirely. He'd searched it from one end to the other; they seemed to have simply vanished.

Jack rubbed determinedly at a stubborn cramp in his thigh. He'd long ago emptied the canteen of water he'd carried, and thirsted for more. The blood loss from which Jack had suffered left behind an insatiable need for water and his muscles were beginning to cramp from the dehydration.

Pulling his cap from his head and pocketing it, Jack absently ran a thumb along the bicep of his left arm for the umpteenth time. He was having trouble absorbing the fact that the horrific injury had been healed. In one moment, his recollection of the injury seemed foggy and dreamlike, in the next, the memory of the injuries he'd sustained would flood back, wild and intense, and Jack would find himself biting back a unexpectedly emotional response to the whole situation.

As his life had flowed away, Jack had been drawn toward that ledge from which he knew there would have been no coming back. He'd felt that instinctual urge to just let go, to release himself from the land of the living, his heartbeat stuttering and struggling all the while -- it just waiting for an excuse to halt altogether. Jack O'Neill had been so incredibly close to death, and was unwillingly reminded of the only other time in his life he'd experienced so much pain and downright, absolute despair.

Jack had certain memories branded upon his mind from those four wretched months he'd spent in the prison in Iraq. His helicopter battered and smashed until it landed with an absolute lack of grace in the middle of the Anbar province, he had had to watch from its tangled wreckage as the escorting duo of Pave Hawk helos had disappeared over the horizon, taking the surviving members of his team back to safety and civilization. Clicking the radio madly, the smell of fuel and hydraulic fluid acrid in his nose, he'd selfishly tried to let them know he hadn't perished in the crash. As he passed the minutes waiting in the heat and smoke, Jack had felt a mixture of relief and remorse as he came to the realization that he'd been left for dead in that stinking, god-forsaken Iraqi desert.

The foreign soldiers who operated the underground prison compound had eventually captured and imprisoned Lt. Colonel O'Neill and Jack had been introduced to methods of pain and degradation not even the most creative of his Spec Ops instructors could have imagined.

Jack had become intimately familiar with the way electricity worked in the human body, how much strain his muscles could undergo before collapse, how much pain could be inflicted before he lost consciousness, how long he could stay blissfully unconscious before sputtering back to life to avoid drowning and just how much complete and utter humiliation he could take before crying out. Jack had come to know himself and his physical and emotional limits better than anyone would ever want to. Better than any person should ever have to.

Swallowing against the remembrance and ducking quickly into yet another shadowed doorway in his final sweep of Seth's compound, Jack sincerely hoped he never would have the chance to test his limits so thoroughly again. And then his stomach clenched at the thought of Sam possibly being subjected to the same trials in an unknown locale, nearby but out of reach.

As Jack leaned stealthily against the door, invisible in the dim light, his luck finally held out. A familiar harsh voice barked out, "Jaffa! Kel shak!" He watched as Seth came around the corner into his line of sight, Jack not daring to breathe lest he be discovered.

His jaw involuntarily clenched at the sound of the Goa'uld voice. The last time Jack had heard it was hours earlier as he'd lay dying on the floor, the inhuman cadence of the speech mocking as the creature had used Jack's imminent death in an attempt to manipulate Sam into cooperation.

Jack's finger twitched at the trigger-guard of his weapon, itching for the opportunity to fire. He'd love nothing more than to take the creature out here and now, but Jack knew he first needed to pinpoint Sam's location.

Two of the henchmen -- Jaffa, Jack realized they were called -- came to attention in front of their leader, bowing their heads in obeisance. The leader of the duo took a small step forward, murmuring lowly to Seth, and the Goa'uld, visibly incensed, backhanded the man across the face.

The Jaffa took the blow stoically, remaining motionless before his leader.

Jack almost missed the words uttered by Seth as the Goa'uld then strode by, his Jaffa trailing two steps behind. _"Bring her to me. I will deal with her myself."_

Wincing as the Goa'uld's eyes flashed in anger, Jack breathed a slow sigh of relief when the three enemies had moved through a far away doorway. Stepping out in to the morning light, Jack O'Neill placed his steps carefully, silently, listening to the echoing footsteps ahead of him in the quiet compound, the footsteps leading away into the darker central corridors of the building.

He tightened his grip on the AR-15 in his hands, supporting it one-handed while his left hand went to his hip once more, checking to be sure his secondary sidearm was still in position. Jack swept the sights of his assault rifle across each doorway he passed, but came across none of the acolytes he knew should be occupying the many bedrooms. Maybe Sam's diversionary fire had done its job of emptying the building, after all. It had been put out quickly, but Jack still vividly remembered the shouts and the smoke, the running feet. He was relieved not to have to decide whether to execute civilians in order to get to the cult's leader, Seth.

The enemy footsteps slowed as they reached the darker central portion of the building, and Jack's careful ear picked out the sound of a single pair of booted feet moving down a previously hidden side-passageway to his left.

As Jack waited, so did the other presences in the hallway ahead. In the dim light, Jack could make out no movement visually, but he could hear the quiet shuffling of a leather-clad individual pacing and the occasional impatient shuffle of his waiting companion.

The silence was otherwise only broken by the sound of Jack's heart beating and the highest-pitched of whines that always tinged the edge of silent situations for him -- the side effect of decades of being too close to gunfire and explosions.

So in his stillness it was he who heard Sam's protests long before the pacing enemies.

A muffled shout, the stomp of a booted foot. Jack could hear her being compelled to come closer, and Seth finally stopped his pacing. Jack could now make out a faint sillhouette in the darkness. Seth waited. Silently. Expectantly.

The pair of Jaffa escorting Sam emerged from the hallway, bright light streaming out of the now-open doorway, her body limp between them. Jack tasted blood in his mouth and vaguely realized he'd had to bite down on his own tongue to keep himself still and silent in the face of the vision before him. Just as the duo attempted to dump Sam on the floor at Seth's feet, Samantha's legs came under her in an amazing show of strength.

Jack watched her straighten and stand in the face of the Goa'uld, jaw set, eyes bright amongst the bruises decorating her face.

Taking a half-step forward in horror at what happened next, Jack could only watch.

The smug Jaffa at Sam's right shoulder gave her a sidelong glance and jabbed at her ribs with a metal wand, and immediately Sam's body went rigid, her back arching, her head jolting backward to turn her face to the sky. An unearthly yellow light left Sam's mouth along with her hoarse scream as she dropped heavily to her knees.

"Kneel, ha'taaka," he said, sneering. The Jaffa was reaching for Sam with the wand again but halted as Seth leveled a malevolent glare in the warrior's direction. He bowed his head reverently before the Goa'uld and lowered the device. "She is yours, Lord Seth," he added, deferentially.

Seth's eyes did not drop an inch from his examination of his second-in-command. "Have the charges been set?" he demanded.

A nod of the Jaffa's head confirmed that it was so, and Jack felt his heart's beat ratchet up a notch at the revelation. Sam didn't react at all to the news of the building being rigged to explode; she remained on her knees at Seth's feet, breathing heavily, eyes unfocused and glassy from the unconcealed continuing pain.

Seth sent his Jaffa on ahead of him with a commanding tilt of his head. Grabbing Sam by the collar of her shirt, he began to walk, pulling the woman alongside him. Samantha's body unfolded and she fell solidly onto one hip, hands grasping weakly at Seth's forearm as he began to drag her along beside him on the highly polished floor.

Feeling the anger coiling in his guts, Jack took a few calming breaths as he trailed invisibly along behind the pair, willing Sam to have strength with his presence.

In the distance, Jack heard the strange metallic whine of the transportation rings activating once, and then again. He now realized where Seth was going. Silent steps instantly became a quiet jog as Jack O'Neill moved to catch up.

The morning sunlight was bright as the trio rounded the corner, Sam and Seth seemingly still unaware of the silent shadow following behind.

Just as Jack moved in for a final lunge to press his weapon against Goa'uld flesh, planning to pull the trigger and destroy this vile creature once and for all … Seth turned to face Jack, moving backward faster than was humanly possible, dragging Sam along with him to the center of the room, keeping her between himself and Jack's weapon.

Golden hand raised in Jack's direction, Seth lowered his gaze to the woman caught beneath his arm. Jack froze, mid-step, weapon raised but afraid for Samantha's well-being. The look in Seth's eyes was homicidal, lids low over darkened eyes.

Shielding his body with Sam's, the Goa'uld addressed Jack. "Who are you?"

"Jack O'Neill, you inept piece of shit," he said, leveling a glare at Seth over the sights of his weapon. "We met earlier?" Without a reaction from Seth, Jack continued. "I killed your bitch queen."

A flicker of uncertainty swept briefly across the Goa'uld's face and shifted his grip on Sam's throat. Jack chanced a well-aimed shot, only to feel a jolt of frustration as Seth's personal shield flared brightly into existence, deflecting the bullet away from his vulnerable host's body. "God damn it!" he muttered between clenched teeth. Raising his head from sighting the weapon, he met Seth's eyes and spoke forcefully. "This is between you and me, so let her go."

A chilling smile formed on Seth's lips, and he shifted his hold on Samantha once more as he raised his chin defiantly. Seth pulled her up against his chest, left hand still outstretched toward Jack, his right forearm pressed firmly across Sam's throat. She struggled against his grip, but it was futile. Jack felt his breath coming short as the Goa'uld's grasp tightened around her.

Sam's mouth gaped momentarily as the panic flickered across her features when she could no longer draw breath. Jack was proud to see the determination visible there immediately after. Her body tensed for a fight, and Jack circled the pair, looking for an opening, preparing to lunge forward in attack.

Her first few kicks had gone unnoticed, and Sam was fighting frantically now, throwing kicks with her legs and throws of her elbows that could have dislocated human kneecaps and broken human ribs, but still Seth stood, motionless, his lips curled back over his teeth in that mockery of a smile.

As Jack rushed forward, Seth suddenly tightened his hold on Samantha's neck, and Jack felt regret rip through him as her body stilled, her face contorting in a silent articulation of complete and utter pain.

The Goa'uld tossed her at Jack and took two steps backward, activating the transportation device in the process.

The rings ascended to surround Seth, the metallic buzzing a harsh counterpoint to the rushing of blood in Jack's ears as he reached to catch Sam as she fell impossibly fast toward the floor. As Seth vanished before them, Jack grabbed for Sam's clothing, steadying her in his grasp. He settled her down on the floor at his feet, cradling her head in one hand, his other hand cupping her injured throat.

"Jeez … Sam," he murmured, feeling frantically for a pulse.

The heartbeat Jack found at her neck was thready and weak, fluttering dangerously fast under the pads of his fingertips. Jack brought his eyes to meet Sam's bright blue ones, already so wide to the ceiling in fear. Cupping her throat with his hand, he patted at the bruised flesh there, pressing, then pulling, trying to do something -- anything -- to press together the crushed windpipe so soft, shattered and utterly destroyed. Sam couldn't breathe and the rapid swelling would only add to the finality of the injury. Jack had seen it a dozen times over the years, but never on someone who had warmed his heart so thoroughly.

He felt Sam's hand clutching tightly at his wrist and her eyes searched his, desperately, almost angrily. Jack pulled her closer, cradling Sam's body in the crook of his arm, settling himself onto his knees as he crouched, vulnerably, in the middle of the expansive room, giving of himself, wishing there was something he could do to ease the pain.

Her mouth opened several times as Jack gazed into her expressive face, but Sam wasn't able to move any air to speak. She mouthed the same syllable repeatedly in dismay, her eyes blinking, full of tears. Sam was saying either, "No," or, "Go." Or perhaps both, Jack realized.

"It's okay," he whispered. Whether for her sake or his, he wasn't sure.

He pressed a thumb to Samantha's lips and held her tighter, tucking her head under his chin, rocking gently where he knelt, offering her his strength while simultaneously willing her to just _let go._

Mere seconds passed before he felt her body arch in his arms, and Jack pulled her close, leaning in, pulling her forehead gently against his neck and holding her firmly in place in the macabre embrace.

Sam's body trembled violently, shaking in Jack's arms before she eventually relaxed, releasing her grip on Jack's arm. He felt her body go slack, the pulse at her neck faltered momentarily under his fingers, beat twice more, and then finally … all was still.

As Sam's body let go of life, the only sound in the room was the steady beat of Jack's pulse in his ears, and he let out a hissing breath to obscure the sound of it, lest it continue to ridicule him in the silence.

Jack felt the tension in his own body rising. His throat tightened, his eyes burned, and with a gasp, Jack pulled Sam powerfully close. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think, and as he pressed his forehead to Sam's, he squeezed his eyes closed against the tears that threatened to spill.

Kneeling there in the middle of Seth's ornate throne room, Jack held Samantha's lifeless body tight and let go of a shaky breath, allowing the memory of Sam's words from before to roll over him.

"_I am going on the assumption that Seth has in his possession a sarcophagus. … The recently dead can be revived if placed within the sarcophagus in time."_

Scooping Sam's limp form up in his arms, Jack pulled himself to his feet and set off across the silent compound at a run, not bothering to muffle his steps. He'd only seen one item in his search of the building that even came close to resembling a sarcophagus, and he wanted to get Sam into it _now. _

Holding her tight as he ran, he turned off the part of his mind observing just how dead she felt. No breath, no pulse. It was disconcerting and he refused to think about it, focusing instead on remembering each twist of the corridor that would bring them to the right room.

Skidding around the final corner and into the atrium, Jack narrowed his eyes against the bright sunlight shining insensibly in through the many panes of glass, focusing instead on the shiny golden machine positioned at the center of the chamber. He dared to hope the device would do what Sam had described, because the fact that the body in his arms was now _lifeless _refused to compute. Sam would live, he assured himself.

The idea that she might not was unspeakable.

As Jack approached, his steps slowed, his motions full of reverence for the implicit power of the sarcophagus.

Lifting Sam's body high, her dangling bare feet clearing the golden edge, he leaned far in to settle Sam gently within the white, coffin-like interior. _Not a coffin, _Jack chided himself silently, before brushing his fingers tenderly across one pale cheek. Standing back, Jack watched as the machine activated, a neon white light bathing Sam's battered face before finally being snuffed out as the box came to a lumbering, rumbling close.

Settling himself back against one wall, Jack felt his composure threaten to come ripping apart. Sliding down the smooth plastered surface, his hands began to shake, and Jack settled his weapon across his knees to wait, knitting his hands together on top of it in order to still them. His eyes never once left the sarcophagus.

Jack tried not to contemplate the spiritual significance of this act, the fact that he was quite literally bringing another human being back to life. He wondered what was happening to her soul, if her human essence was perhaps waiting patiently somewhere nearby for her body to be bound back together in life -- or if this meant there _was _no human soul.

After what felt to Jack like an hour but was most likely only a matter of a few restless minutes, Jack heard the machine's mechanisms grind to life once more. Pulling himself to his feet and wiping his palms on the front of his thighs, Jack approached the sarcophagus.

There in the middle of the room, a soft white light split the room, widening, exposing Samantha to the sunlight once again. She was still and pale, her face free of the bruises and blood that had previously marred it.

Jack waited expectantly, and within seconds, Sam was blinking against the naked sunlight on her face. Without further conscious thought, Jack was bowing low across the opening to pull her into his arms, mumbling thanks to the gods -- false or not -- who had wrought this wondrous neon sarcophagus box. He had brought Sam back.

She would live.

--

Jack pulled back from Sam and she searched his face with her eyes. He was pale and sweaty, with dark circles under his eyes. And she, Sam realized, was in a sarcophagus. She had no sense of how much time had passed. One moment she'd been in Jack's arms, unable to breathe and dying, and the next, she'd been in Jack's arms, alive and well. She decided to set aside the experience to examine later.

Sam's fingers and toes were still tingling, and she drew in a deep, calming breath as Jack helped her from the sarcophagus, herself sparing the device one last lingering glance as she regained her balance.

Sam met Jack's eyes earnestly, absorbing the rawness in his regard. His eyes darted across her face in wonder. Brushing a hand across his clammy forehead, she quickly sorted through all that had transpired before. "Jack," she asked. "How much time do we have?"

Jack shrugged. "Don't know. Minutes, I'd guess." He then gestured to a dark metallic ball resting ominously in the corner of the room. "Can you read that?"

Sam's eyes widened as they followed his gaze to the display on the Goa'uld-built bomb. It was counting down.

"We have to get out of here," she urged. Pulling at Jack's shirtsleeve, Sam gestured to the wide expanse of glass before them.

Jack's eyes lit up in comprehension, and he shook off Sam's grasp, lifting up one of the tall, decorative urns that flanked the sarcophagus, tossing it through the nearest window in one smooth motion.

The panes shattered, and Sam and Jack were running for the window before the shards had finished raining down upon the shiny tiled floor, crashing loudly in the silence.

And thus, with a final reassuring glance at each others faces, they dove for safety, Jack lifting Sam by the waist, pulling her to him to keep her bare feet away from the worst of the glass. Landing heavily in the dirt on the other side, they ran, not knowing how long it would be before the entire building came down behind them.

--

_What do you think so far? You can press that little review button down below to let me know! I really appreciate those of you who keep coming back and reviewing again and again (it is so fun to see who is following from chapter to chapter). Also, to those of you who just reviewed for the first time, thank you! I love seeing all that feedback! Can't wait to see what you think of this chapter._


	13. Chapter 13

Warnings: Language, death, copious author's notes, and (new!) occasional ridiculously long breaks between updates.

_AN: Thanks so much for the patience, folks. Life has been busy. I have been choosing to sleep at night instead of write ... and we all know my best writing happens between the hours of one and three am. If I could have skipped this chapter, I would have, but alas ... here it is. _

_Enjoy.  
_

_--_

Charlie O'Neill was pacing.

He was tense.

His hands -- balled in fists -- were pressed tightly into his jeans pockets, and his toes flexed in his sneakers as he walked. At the apex of the ump-teenth turn, he paused once more, and found his eyes drawn to the refrigerator for the millionth time.

The bright red numbers were loud in contrast with the white fridge door. They mocked his inability to leave things well enough alone.

Five. Fifteen. Twenty-three.

Charlie dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling for a few long moments and murmured into the air. "Monday." He tasted the word, savoring it as it lingered on his tongue ... willing it to bring the next day a few more tortuous minutes closer.

The letter in the safe upstairs called to the young man. "It will explain everything," Jack had said. Bringing his dad's words to mind, Charlie once again wondered if the man had devised this entire nerve-wracking weekend as some sort of test for his son. Only the memory of the heartfelt way his dad had embraced him before leaving made the whole situation startlingly real. Charlie was supposed to wait for Monday to read the letter, and only if his dad hadn't come home by then.

Once again, he spoke to the ceiling.

"Monday."

Charlie was unsure whether it was a mantra for patience or a prayer for his father's safe return, but it was on his lips regardless. His eyes drew slowly to the clock on the wall where he was again reminded that it was early on Sunday morning. While the rest of the city sleepily prepared for a morning spent in church praying to their God for forgiveness and for hope, here Charlie was, in his dad's empty house on base, helpless to alert the proper authorities until tomorrow, praying only for his father's safe return.

Although he had grown up as the son of a man who made his career out of Special Ops, Charlie knew he was still largely unaware of what was so "special" about the operations. His dad was always cautiously vague.

Charlie had, however, seen the tense trembling form of his father as the man slept heavily in the living room on the rare nights sleep had taken him unawares. The heaviness of sleep wasn't enough to still the thrashing of his arms in the moments before the man awoke, his breathing coming quickly, and Charlie had seen the cold sheen of sweat on his dad's creased brow.

As a young boy, Charlie had once questioned his dad about what kind of dreams could disturb the man so. The resulting answer had shattered the hero image the child had of his father, the decorated officer. "I've had to do some damn despicable things, Charlie," he'd said. "Deviant things." A bitter expression had ghosted itself across Jack O'Neill's face before he had regained his usual calm demeanor.

Charlie blew out a long calming breath as he remembered the fights he'd witnessed between his parents as an adolescent. Jack's carefully calm exterior, his unruffled responses only serving to further rile Sara's exclamations of anger. The way his mom had escalated the situations with harsh, hurtful words until Charlie had hidden himself away with earbuds blasting music loud enough to rattle in his skull just to keep from hearing more.

It had been years before Charlie had grown up enough to realize his mother hadn't actually started all of those arguments as he'd originally thought. He'd only recently realized the truth: it was his dad's cool detachment that had pushed her into the violent screaming. She'd only wanted a response from her husband – and any response would do.

Charlie winced as he recalled one memorable argument ... the argument he was pretty sure had precipitated the end of his parents' marriage.

A particularly loud oath from his mother in the next room had had Charlie pulling the earphone from one ear to listen. She'd yelled a few more insults before suddenly stopping short in the middle of the outrageous and vicious speech. Stumbling, shuffling feet, followed by a muffled thump had brought Charlie to his feet in the irrational fear that his mom had finally pushed his dad too far.

Charlie had been standing in the doorway to the kitchen before he'd known it, brushing his hair out of his eyes to better see the shockingly intense scene before him.

Jack'd had his wife pressed to the wall with his body, his hands still politely at his sides for all that his posture had screamed of intimidation. Sara's hands had been pushing against her husband's chest. Her eyes had been squeezed tightly shut in fear.

From his stance of uncertainty on the threshold of the room, Charlie had been able to hear the low, slow growl from lips hovering beside Sara's ear. "I do not want this."

Sara had flinched.

Jack had continued to speak. "_This?"_ His broad hand had gestured wildly in the air beside the pair as Charlie watched. "None of this is _real. _You don't understand. You _won't _understand unless you live it." The hand had slapped against the wall, the noise echoing of finality.

Jack had stepped away from Sara, releasing her from her position against the wall, but there she had remained, trembling.

Charlie's eyes had met his dad's dark gaze and the man's expression had softened from the look of anger to one more akin to hurt. Or regret. He'd held Charlie's gaze for a long moment before finally pushing past him with a shoulder to make his way to the front door.

The divorce had been filed a week later.

Charlie had never talked to his parents about the words he'd heard. He'd spent his remaining teenage years with his mother, seeing his dad every few months for a day or three. Occasionally for weeks if they were lucky.

Even after the divorce, Charlie hadn't seen his dad smile often. The weight of his father's occupation was heavy and hard to shake; Charlie could tell. It took weeks for his dad to relax after coming home from a mission, and a month or more for him to regain the ability to really converse.

Scuffing his feet across the carpet, Charlie made his way into the vacant kitchen.

He reached out a tentative finger to trace the numbers on the fridge and studied the digits written there in his dad's firm handwriting. Just like his father, they stood straight and calm. Charlie wished he could be as stoic in the midst of the storm of indecision in which he now found himself.

The face of the refrigerator was smooth under his fingertip, and as a stunning realization came to him, Charlie's finger squeaked to a halt on its surface.

His dad hadn't specifically said he had to wait until Monday to read the letter -- just that he needed to wait until Monday to go to the base commander with the information.

Three seconds later, Charlie was bounding up the stairs, taking the carpeted steps two at a time. Shortly thereafter, he was on his knees in his father's closet in front of the nondescript safe. His fingers shook as he turned the numbered knob, each twist bringing him closer to the truth.

Five, fifteen, twenty-three.

Charlie pulled on the latch.

The door swung open.

Then the letter was in his hands, and Charlie began to read.

--

_Meanwhile:_

Jack was running.

Sam was at his side.

He eyed her from the corner of his eye as they hoofed it across the open expanse surrounding Seth's compound, and the urgency in her expression pressed him into running even harder. Seemingly unencumbered by her barefoot state, Sam shook her hand free and used a fist to hike her robes up even higher. She pulled ahead of Jack, leading him toward the shelter of the trees.

The concussion from the blast reached Jack first. It knocked the breath from his body, and he watched as Sam's stride faltered shortly after. The impact of the concussive wave pressed the pair forward and they fell to their knees at the treeline as the wild and rumbling sound of the explosion caught up to them several seconds later.

There was a moment of calm before the debris began to fall in which Jack could hear only the loud and roaring ringing of his ears.

He pulled himself forward, throwing an arm up across Sam's shoulders and pulling her to him as they ducked to avoid shards of brick and fluttering splinters of wood. The heavier pieces fell around them, and Jack felt rather than heard the impact of them hitting the ground. The world felt unnaturally silent as his stunned ears tried to recover.

Mercifully, they were shielded from the worst of the debris by the trees above.

The smell of spent explosives was bitter and as the lighter dust and dirt began to rain down around them, Jack pulled his shirt up to cover his nose and mouth. Sam shielded herself from the ash and dust in a similar manner and they huddled together for a moment, both breathing heavily from the run.

Meeting Sam's eyes with his own, Jack reached out a hand and cupped Sam's flushed face. Her eyes were bright, reflecting the enjoyable sensation of adrenaline well-spent and he spared her a smile, feeling the survival-spawned excitement melt away to a warm feeling of relief as she returned the grin in full.

They simultaneously looked away to see what remained of the building from which they'd narrowly escaped. There was nothing left of the grand mansion. On one side, a pile of rubble, and on the other, the deep hole had opened from which smoke bellowed. Jack pulled Sam in close against one shoulder and dropped a kiss to the top of her head.

They were both lucky to be alive.

He had opened his mouth to ask Samantha if she was okay when the muffled and dull roar in his ears was blotted out by a screeching whine. A shadow momentarily dropped over the pair as what Jack could only describe as a small _spaceship _streaked over them above the trees. The whine stuttered a few times, and the ship threatened to drop into the forest before it recovered its altitude and promptly shimmered out of existence.

Open-mouthed, Jack blinked a few times in an attempt to clear away the optical illusion.

Beside him, he heard Sam let out a grunt of irritation, and she scrambled to her feet to get a better view of the direction in which the ship had disappeared.

"Oka-a-ay," Jack murmured. He was relieved to find his own voice only slightly muffled in his own head – the hearing loss was quickly fading. "What the hell was _that?"_ He punctuated the final word with a quickly-extended arm, pointing toward the place where the craft had vanished.

Sam didn't respond.

"Samantha."

She blinked at the use of her name, and turned slowly to face Jack. When she spoke, her voice shook. "I didn't know."

"You didn't know the _alien_ had a goddamned _spaceship?"_

She carefully shook her head in the negative, and Jack felt his anger rising. "How in the hell could you not know?" he bit out.

"I swear, I had no-- There was never any evidence ..." Sam's voice trailed away, and she turned to look toward the horizon, the intense disbelief plain on her face.

Jack took a deep breath, intending to tell Sam exactly what he thought about the competence of her Stargate Program, when Sam swore loudly, striking the nearest tree with the flat of her palm.

Sam turned and gave the smoldering crater where the building had stood a lingering glance, and then strode off in the opposite direction.

Jack called out. "Sam."

She didn't stop.

"Dammit. Sam!" Jack let out a breath in a huff of frustration as she disappeared into the trees. "Samantha!" He moved to follow, jogging after her and hissing, "CARTER!" as loudly as he dared as she came back into his view.

She was still walking away, though she waved a hand over her shoulder at Jack in dismissal at his use of her surname.

He finally caught up to her, and caught Sam by the elbow, stopping her march. "Where's the fire?" Jack asked.

Sam's face crumpled up in disgust and Jack realized a few seconds later what a horrible choice of words he'd used. Damn. He mirrored her expression of distaste. "You know what I mean."

"I have to get back to the truck and get home."

"Shouldn't we, you know ... alert the local authorities or something?" Jack asked. He waved his hand in the air in an approximation of the spaceship's flight. "Or is it long gone?"

Her eyes followed the trajectory of his hand. "That depends on your definition of 'long gone,' Jack."

"Long gone as in ... not our problem any more?" he questioned. He hoped he didn't sound too hopeful.

Sam shook her head, and Jack didn't dare question her look of determination.

"O-o-okay then." Jack circled for a moment, pretending to be momentarily lost. When he looked back at Sam, she was hiding a smile. "To the truck?" he instructed with raised eyebrows and an outstretched arm.

Raising her eyebrows in amusement, Sam gestured for him to walk ahead of her.

Ah, so she saw through the Lost Boy Scout routine then. Jack swallowed a laugh as he took point. They made good time, but he quickly tired, pulling branches out of their way as they walked, handgun at the ready. The AR-15 was slung loosely across his back. Sam had her compact sidearm in one hand, but more often than not was busy untangling her long robes from the underbrush.

As they moved further from the site of the explosion -- and the circling helos -- their pace slowed and she explained their dilemma to Jack.

Apparently the stuttering sound the ship had made as it glided over the treetops meant that the power supply was unstable in some way. The craft would never be able to make it far in space, and anyway, Sam had explained, Seth was wanted for crimes against the Goa'uld System Lords. She didn't think he would leave Earth when it had provided such a good place of hiding all these years already.

Jack tried to hide the disappointment he felt that the Goa'uld was still their problem. He admired Sam's fortitude, but he himself wasn't looking forward to another meeting any time soon.

An image of the creature strangling Sam flashed unbidden into his mind, and he swallowed thickly. He glanced back in time to see her wincing at a mis-step. "You okay?" Jack asked. She nodded a silent reply and he pulled aside a branch politely, letting her walk ahead for a moment, not wanting Sam out of his sight any longer.

The trek back to the place where they'd hidden Jack's truck took more time than he had expected, mostly because of Sam's barefoot state. She had to place each step with caution, so it was slow-going. The sun was high in the sky when they finally arrived.

The air was thick with humidity, and Jack handed his keys to Sam and plopped down into the thick grass on the side of the over-grown road. The sense of failure was as oppressive as the growing heat. He pulled off his blood-encrusted shirt, tossing it aside along with his memories of the incident.

Jack lay back in the grass and took a deep, cleansing breath. He focused his eyes on the sliver of sky visible over the forested, abandoned road and scrubbed a hand absently through his hair. "So what now?" His voice was scratchy and he cleared his throat.

Sam replied without hesitation. "Plan B." She had the door to the truck opened and was digging in the black duffel bag.

"You have a plan B?" Jack turned his head toward her and tried not to sound too eager to hear it. He was more than a little proud that she hadn't been single-minded in her attack on the Goa'uld stronghold.

"Of course," She replied, the fact that her back was to him not hiding the pride in her voice. "A wise man once taught me -- Plan A never works." She tossed him a bottle of water, and Jack drank deeply.

Jack alternated picking at the label on the bottle and hydrating his sore and tired body. He was oddly comforted by the fact that that in her timeline he'd had a similar record of Plan A failures in outer space as well as the ones from places like Uganda, Peru, and Sierra Leone. "Well," he said lightly, wetting his lips. "Plan B ... Plan B is always a doozy."

He aimed his most charming smile at Sam when she glanced at him from over her shoulder. He dared to hope the sparkle in her eyes was from adoration.

"Yes sir," she answered irreverently. "And when that one doesn't work, there's always Plan C."

Amusement, then, not adoration. Jack threw a twig at her in mock-irritation, and she sidestepped it easily.

He, however, caught the grimace of pain she allowed after the step and remembered her bare feet. Jack was standing in an instant, concern for Sam overriding his bone-deep weariness. "Let me see," he said.

Sam grudgingly lifted each foot for inspection. He took his time with it, feeling the length of each bone and tendon with his thumb. Her skin was soft beneath his fingers, and he carefully rubbed away the dirt from their run.

Jack found the soles of her feet to have a number of small but likely harmless cuts beneath the dirt, but there was a broad gash on one heel that looked particularly deep. He murmured sympathetic words as he prodded its margins, feeling for glass. Reaching past Sam, he located the small first aid kit and worked to clean the cut with an antiseptic wipe, apologizing quietly at the subdued hiss of pain the attention elicited.

A few minutes later, Jack had worked his magic with a bit of gauze and tape. Jack straightened, moving to stretch out the kinks in his knees but Sam stopped him with a palm on his bare chest.

He watched with half-lidded eyes as Sam tilted her head back to meet his gaze fully. "Thank you," she said. "For the..." Her hand gestured helplessly between her throat and her heart.

"Resurrection?" Jack suggested helpfully.

"Yeah. That."

Jack leaned in, brushing his lips ever so softly against Sam's. "Yeah," he said when her eyes re-opened. "Ditto." He brought his forehead to hers for a brief moment, and as he listened to the wind in the trees, Jack could almost swear some parts of his heart he hadn't felt in _years _were beginning to thaw.

--

TBC

--

_AN: The next update may be a little delayed. I plan to participate in the GW Family Ship Thread Ficathon and I'm also re-working the end of this fic. I was planning to just, um, kill pretty much everyone off well before the end (come on, you've seen Continuum!!) but certain characters have grown on me. I'm currently in the middle of a major re-write of the final scenes, most of which had until now been pretty much set in stone from the start. I hope you will like what I've come up with. Characters are still gonna die, though (again: you've seen Continuum!)._

_By the way, we are still nowhere near the end. I'd guess we're 40-60% there, depending on how verbose I get._

_Also: I have still not re-uploaded the previous chapters like I had planned. Believe me, I know about the typos. There's a list. I plan to fix them post-haste._

_Do click the review button there and let me know if you're still reading. I hope everyone is enjoying this ride as much as I am. See you soon._


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